But Magic Doesn't Exist!
by Tsuchi
Summary: [Crossover with Harry Potter] A mission that should have ended in their deaths instead sends five teenage exterrorists six hundred years in the past. Can they overcome their inherent distrust fast enough to help save the world a third time?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own neither Gundam Wing, nor Harry Potter. I realize that none of the HP characters come in yet, but they will next chapter. All subsequent chapters, therefore, have this same disclaimer applied to them. No suey, I just love these guys so much!

A/N: This fic contains SLASH! So, no flames please. I want to stress this bit, here: Criticisms will be accepted (and if it pertains to how I can write better, welcomed); flames will not be. If you can't bother to be polite, why should I bother to listen? 's'at simple. Now on with fic!

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

But Magic _Doesn't _Exist! -Prologue

Darkness. Blessed sleep. Then…

BLINDING GLARE- lights… /_who turned on the_…/

"Get up, Maxwell, we move out in five." /_Oh./_

Disorienting movement. Getting up on… feet. Nevermind, sitting again. /_Damn legs, collapsing on me._/

"…coffee. Need caffeine." Pleading. Can't… focus. /Where…/

"No time, baka. We move out in _five_." /_Fuck you too, Heero./_

Standing again. Light… too bright. Squint. Make out…

"… where's my pants?"

"We don't have time, just put these on." Cloth against skin, rough. /_Okay now, focus./_

Sort out shirt from pants. /_One hole at a time now./ _Pull shirt over head. Too small…! Tearing. /_God, whose is this/_

"Just put them on!" /_Must've said that out loud…/_

Pants next. So… /_whoopee, they fit./_ One leg, next leg. On.

"Belt…?"

A growl. Then, "here." Thread it… carefully… carefully.

_/Click/_ "All done, Hee-man."

"Hn. Get moving. 03, 04, and 05 are already in the jeep."

"… Right."

…

Fog clearing. All right! Mission! Finally/_Three weeks of waiting, and staking out, and generally going out of my mind with boredom pays off! But why'd'we have to make our move in the middle of the night…/_

"Because Maxwell, this is our only chance to get the enemy before they receive reinforcements, and there's a five minute gap we can use to infiltrate at three am. If you hadn't been _napping_, you wouldn't be tired."

"…I said that out loud didn't I?"

"Yes, Maxwell, you did."

"Wufei… we're supposed to refer to them as suspects. Not 'enemies'."

"They're enemies of the peace that's been established. Therefore, they are my enemies as well."

"Still…"

"Heh heh. Quat does _not_ sound happy, Wu."

"_Don't _call me that, Maxwell."

"Whatever you say, 'Fei-babe." /_God, I love doing this to him…/_

"Maxwell…!"

"Chang, Duo, stop."

"Yes sir! Mr Hee-bear sir!" Wufei snorts.

Stretch. The wind is doing me good. I'm waking up, even without coffee! "Okay. So what's'e game plan?"

"Duo, you go in, and secure the control room. Chang, Barton, Winner, and I will attack from the outside, and make our way in." He hands me a gun. I'm not sure whose, it could be Trowa's or Wufei's maybe, but I _know_ it's not mine. Still, it'll work well enough, and I don't think we have time to swap. "Shoot to disarm, or maim. Do _not _kill."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know." I lean over to Trowa, sitting on the other side of me, in the back seat. "Jesus. You'd think we hadn't done this before." The bastard blinks at me, and then smiles slightly. God. If I'd known the stick-up-the-asses I'd be working with- I don't care that I worked with'em during the war, they're _still_ just as bad- I'd'a stayed with Hilde at the junkyard.

…Or maybe not. She could get _so_ creepy sometimes. But at least _she_ realized her face wouldn't shatter if she laughed. I yawn.

"'Kay, I can do this."

"I should hope so. Our lives depend on you, as soon as we get inside. If you can't hack the system and shut down the security measures…" Jesus, that's sounds like a threat.

"Yeah, I _know_. All of us go mushy mushy bye bye."

"'Mushy mushy bye bye'?"

GRINDING HALT THROWN FORWARD HEAD PAIN OW! A not _quite_ screeching halt. "We're here."

_/No kidding_./

"Move out. Duo, we'll give you a fifteen minute head start."

"Right-o, boss."

…

Sidle sidle sidle, jump! Sidle sidle sidle jump! Avoid guard! Hide hide hide run-to-next-shadow! Hide hide hide jump! Freeze!

-noises. 'Hey! D'you hear that?' 'No.' 'Huh. Must'a been imagining things. Damn late shifts. You know, I've been thinking of asking for morning… ifts…. ead…"-

Move. Scale wall. Perch on window sill. Wait for control room guards to turn away… use credit card to open window latch. Hide. Freeze. Wait. Guards move again. And again. They're all not looking again. /_heh. Amateurs_./ Quick. Open window, in! Use gun like club. Smash guard-o numero uno.

SPIN. There's another RIGHT BEHIND ME! KICK/_Shit! Think I hit his temple, there./ _Guard-o numero deux-o (or whatever) collapses. One more. Gun up. Trained on him. Whisper.

"Get on the floor."

"Aw man, don't shoot me!"

"Get on the floor." He does. "Head to the ground." He does. I crash my foot into the back of his head. The tension in his body disappears. /_He's gonna wake up with one nasty headache. And one nasty case of being in Preventer custody/ _

_/Okay, boot up the systems./_ Wait. Hack file. Find… security measures. /_Shut'em down. Shut'em all down… Now why do I feel like I'm quoting someone…? Focus, doofus/_

Shutting down, one by one. Override security locks. /_Bust open one safety measure at a time…! Where _did_ I get that quote from? No, focus/_ Last one.

/Huh. It's a strange one. Look at all those clause algorithms. Complex. Still, even Gundams had an 'off' switch. Just gotta find this machine's. Ah hah/

Last one down. We're good.

FLASHING LIGHT BRIGHT YELLOW-_ /Zero…/-_ ALARMS BLARING – /_Oh Jesus, I shoulda looked at all those clauses, shit I've probably brought hell down on us all! Shit/_

Stumbling. Door… where…? There! Open… run. /_Run for all you're worth/ _Down, left, left, right. Crazy pattern. /_How could I let this go to shit/_ Just random turns, keep pursuit away. Right, left, straight, straight, left. Door. Open. In.

…

My heart's pounding. So's my head. Fuck Quat's driving skills anyway. Looks like I'm in… a house? That can't be right… quarter's then. Must be, like… officer's quarters. A couch. /_Fuck I'm tired./_

Falling. Rushing air, falling. /_Oh right. Star Wars. C-3P0. "Shut them down, shut them all down"…! Heh. Horrible graphics. Comfy couch./ _Falling. Still air, falling. Then… Darkness.

Blessed sleep.


	2. Chapter 1

But Magic Doesn't Exist! -Chapter 1

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

Like some hellish variation on Chinese Water Torture, there was a constant _drip drip drip_ all over his body. His bedroom smelled of earth and vegetation, a far cry from the sandalwood and musk that should have pervaded his senses.

Wufei breathed deep, found his center, and rose. At once his hands and feet felt the difference between the soft springy feel of the ground, and the hardwood that should have been there. He couldn't think where he must have fallen asleep in order to be _outside_, presumably on Earth, since no colony would have this much foliage, this many _trees,_ in one place.

A forest…? Perhaps… perhaps Trieze had captured him…and brought him to one of his estates…? But… It seemed a long time ago, in his memory, that he and the general had fought in person. Drifting

Returning

To space

Lancing

Forward _into_ Tallgeese. Spearheading the spearhead of the OZ faction. Killing… Oh.

Then where _was_ he…? Wufei searched his memory. The last certifiable memory was of joining Sally after the Eve Wars. But fragments drifted in his head like broken suit parts in space. Being briefed by Une, sneering at that annoying recruit down the hall, Maxwell bounding into his office, catching Barton and Winner together, yellow light bursting in stars around him. A thought: _Damn Maxwell!_ Then darkness.

Alright, so it was Maxwell's fault that his head pounded- probably with a concussion- and that he had no idea where he was. He looked up. The stars' positions… it looked consistent with Earth. Probably somewhere in Europe. Interesting. He had left Brussels and come to the countryside without his memory recording anything.

Furthermore- he realized as he looked down- that he had, not _his_ gun, but Barton's. And he was also wearing Barton's pants, despite the difference in leg length this presented. He'd apparently had the presence of mind to roll up the cuffs when he put them on, but still. He was also wearing Yuy's shirt. It fit him loosely at best, and Wufei could only assume Sally was right about the effect 'overworking' was having on his mind and he'd been temporarily insane when he'd gotten dressed.

He checked Barton's clip, and found it was empty. Wufei could imagine Maxwell's hypothetical reaction: "Whoopee. Why _thank you, _Tro-tro!" At least he had his katana, though _why_ he had it was also a mystery. It should be carefully displayed in his apartment.

Wufei froze. Were those… voices…? Yes. He listened for a second, then cautiously approached where he thought they were coming from, strapping the ceremonial sword to his back. The pattering rain, he supposed, would cover his approach well enough. He was coming closer. Closer. Closer. Two voices. They were on the other side of this one tree. He centered himself, retracting his _ki1_ into his _hara2_, making his presence as small as possible.

An annoyed sigh. Above average pitch. Female. Young. "Please tell me we can go home soon. Mum'll have our heads if she finds out we were out here." /_…what? Who/_

"Just a second! I swear I saw lights."

"'Lights'?"

"Yeah! Yellow ones."

"Ronald Weasley, you are a moron." /_'You're that weak scholar boy.'_ /

_/… Meiran/_

"Nata-?" Wufei surged out from behind the tree, forgetting in his surprise that as a warrior Nataku would interpret his action as an attack, and that this 'Ronald Weasley' was of unknown allegiance. And that Nataku was dead. She had died in his arms.

"_Stupefy_!" LIGHT EXPLODING STRIKING HIM AND THEN- darkness.

"Nata-"

"_Stupefy_!"

Ginny's wand was out and her voice screaming the spell almost before she recognized that there was a person there. The man- boy?- collapsed, and the surprised look on his face relaxed. He looked rather handsome that way, she thought.

"See? I told you we should check it out. He might have been… one of them." Ron said, belatedly pulling out his own wand, and pointing at the prone form.

"Ron. If he'd been a Death Eater, we could have been in big trouble. I wonder who he is… he doesn't look like a wizard."

"Yeah, those are Muggle clothes. And he isn't holding a wand. Well, he could still be a-"

Ginny's eyes lit on the Luger. "He's a Muggle. I know about those." She pointed at the weapon. "Hermione told me about them. It's a gun." She looked at his clothes, at the 'P' on a diamond. "And he's wearing some kind of uniform, it looks like."

"Well, what do we do with him?"

"We can't leave him out here. We should take him back with us."

"But Mum'll throw a fit!" Ron's face held a curious mixture of nervousness and suspicion.

"What do you suggest then?"

"I don't know!"

"Then let's take him back! Mum will know what to do."

"…Okay." Ron didn't look happy with the decision, but he muttered '_Ligo_' anyway, and ropes bound the Chinese stranger's upper limbs.

Ginny pointed at him with her wand, and "_Excito_." The man's black eyes blinked open, and a measure of severity returned to his face. The attractiveness fled from that severity, and he glared up at them from the ground. Confusion flickered over his face as he looked at her, before his eyes flickered around him, and he scowled. "Get up," she said.

He sat up, first, shaking his head minutely, and tested the ropes. They held firm, and he stood.

"Who are you?" Ron demanded. The stranger's flickered over to him, focusing after a second, and his lips pressed into a hard line. He said nothing.

Ginny shook her head. "Follow us." She commanded, and the hard gaze returned to her. If anything, the expression on his face hardened, and he looked angry. "Being mad won't help you." She told him, and walked behind him, poking him forward with her wand.

He walked forward slowly, as if getting his bearings, or as if unsure of his steps.

"Are you alright?" she asked, and he turned to look at her, frowning. Then he turned back, and continued walking. She could see the lights of the house up ahead, and unconsciously hurried her step.

As they came closer to the house, she could see _someone_ on the porch. "Oooh!" George's voice floated to them. "Ickle Ronnikins is gonna get in trouble!" Ron grumbled slightly, something along the lines of 'Ickle Ronnikins is gonna hex you for calling him that', and the stranger snorted with amusement.

"Hey, shut up." Ron glared, and the stranger obediently fell silent.

"Oi! Who's that there?" Fred had apparently joined George on the porch. "I dunno, George, but I don't think Mum's gonna like it." Or maybe George had joined Fred on the porch.

All amusement had faded away from the twins by the time the trio reached the porch. "We found him in the forest. Near where Ron saw those lights." Ginny explained. "He yelled something about 'Nato'… and then I _stupefied_ him."

The stranger looked like he was going to say something, but subsided, glaring dangerously. George opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a nearly booming voice from inside.

"FRED! GEORGE! HAVE YOU FOUND YOUR SYBLINGS?" Molly Weasley stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

"Yes, Mum." George said. "We found Gin and Ickle Ronnikins,"

"And they found someone else." Fred finished. They both moved aside to show the wet children and their even wetter prisoner, in pants too long and too tight for him, and tied from the waist up with magic ropes.

"Have they indeed?" Molly said, and then bustled forward. "Now what's this nonsense?" The ropes were rapidly disposed of, revealing a too loose shirt, and before he could do anything, all five were bustled inside, into warmth, into dry, into _home_.

"We'll discuss bringing tied up strangers home later, young man," she said, "But for now, get out of those wet clothes. All of you, to your rooms, and don't come down until I call you."

His unlikely captors walked away, and Wufei was given a chance to study the girl one last time before she was gone up the stairs. How he could have thought that she was Nataku… well, their voices were nearly identical. And their mannerisms. He was left alone with a portly woman with the same flaming red hair that both his captors and their siblings had sported. He presumed this was their mother.

He frowned at himself. Honestly. Being captured by children… Maxwell would never let him live it down, if he knew. Neither would Yuy, though the bastard would hold it above Wufei's head differently.

"Now," the woman said, putting her hands on his shoulders and holding him at arms length. "Let's see. You'll fit well enough into some of George's things, I think. You're lucky they came home to visit. GEORGE!" she screamed the last up the stairs.

"WHAT, WOMAN?" a voice yelled back down.

"BRING SOMETHING DOWN FOR OUR GUEST TO WEAR!" she yelled back, and Wufei winced. "Oh I'm sorry, dear, does your head hurt?"

Wufei gave a tiny laugh. "Captive to guest," he muttered, "in five seconds flat."

"Yes well, we'll get to what you're doing here in a second." She gave him a hard look and reached out to catch the garments that floated down the stairs. They didn't _quite _fall fast enough to have been thrown. Wufei looked at them in a mixture of surprise and indifference. He suspected that he should have been a lot more surprised than he was, to find himself in the midst of a house where there was a cauldron that seemed to be stirring itself over a fire, and garments floated themselves down the stairs, but he wasn't, and he suspected- no, _knew_- it was for two reasons. First, he no doubt had a concussion, and second, his great uncle, third in line to inherit the colony, in his time, had been a wizard.

It had been a non-subject as a child. Of course, people had talked, just not openly, where only the nosy child he had been could hear, not that they knew that. A wizard. And the toys his great uncle had sent could only have been powered by magic, because Wufei had once taken one apart to see how it ran, and had never been able to figure it out. But when he put it back together again, it had worked as if there was no problem.

Then his uncle had died, and the toys stopped arriving from Earth, where he had made his home, and the issue had been pushed to the back of Wufei's mind in the face of school work and training.

In the midst of old memories surfacing, the woman had been measuring up the garment against his body, and now shoved it into his arms. "Put these on, and then sit down."

It seemed to be some sort of robe, and it was a simple matter to slip it over his head, and then wiggle out of his partners' clothes. Molly had turned away, but turned back as Wufei carefully piled his wet clothing together. She indicated a seat, and he took it, rubbing the side of his head, frowning. His fingers found the lump that was the source of his pain, and then the pressure points around it. He pressed into them, lessening the pain marginally.

"Here now." Molly handed him a bowl of soup, and a fist sized loaf of bread. "Get this into you, and then we'll talk."

When Wufei finished, he sat patiently, waiting for the questions he knew would come.

Molly sat across from him, and looked at him. "What's your name, deary?"

"Chang Wufei." He answered, then rubbed at his forehead, and clarified. "Or rather, Wufei Chang, if you want it Western style."

"I see. And what, precisely were you doing on our property?"

"I don't know. I suspect I have a concussion. My memory seems to be incomplete. I can recall fragments that span a year or so, and then…" he shook his head slowly. "Nothing except waking up on your property wearing my… colleagues' clothing, and with no idea how I got here."

The woman frowned. "Is there anyone you can contact to confirm this?"

Wufei ran over the people he knew who didn't despise him. Or who, at least, didn't despise him enough to tell this woman he was a convicted criminal who should be shot on sight or something along those lines. It was rather short, since the Eve Wars had left his reputation in ruins. "Not if you don't want a Preventer squad coming into your home. That's, of course, providing you take down the wards you no doubt have around your house."

The woman looked at him, and frowned as he continued. "Of course, that begs the question of how _I_ got on your property, since last time I checked I was Muggle."

She blinked. "You know about that then?"

"Well the cauldron was a dead give away." He favored her with a twitch of his lips: the closest to a smile he was going to come. She looked fairly alarmed, and he continued. "But if my great-uncle hadn't been a wizard, I probably wouldn't have noticed."

Reassured, she looked at him again, frowning. "You said you had a concussion?"

Wufei nodded. "I suspect so."

"Well, then, I'd best get you off to bed."

"Could someone-" Wufei began, unsure how to make the request.

"I'll set an alarm spell to wake you every hour, don't worry." She bustled him up the stairs in a surprisingly good Winner-as-a-hen impression, and pushed him into a room that already contained two beds. His captors were sitting on it, looking up at him in the doorway. "Alright, the two of you, get yourselves downstairs. Wufei, deary, why don't you just get some rest in the extra bed there."

Almost as if he'd blacked out, Wufei found himself in a strange bed, in a strange house, in strange clothes, all with little to no idea how he'd gotten there. As he sunk off to sleep, assured that he would be woken in an hour, he found himself wondering what had happened to make him think 'Damn Maxwell'.


	3. Chapter 2

But Magic Doesn't Exist -Chapter 2

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

Heero's eyes flickered open to watch early morning sunlight shine through a canopy of foliage. He sat up, noting absently that his uniform pants were too small, and that his shirt was in breach of protocol. In short, he was in Wufei's pants, and Duo's shirt. He had been lying in a spread eagle formation in a small clearing of unknown location.

His mode of transport to this location was also unknown. He scanned his surroundings, making note of the deciduous trees in his area, and that the clearing appeared to be man-made. The clearing ran alongside a dirt and gravel road, attached to which were several other small clearings, 4 within sight, including the one he had woken up in, were occupied by trailers similar to the trailers in Trowa's sister's circus. 5 more were occupied by tents.

He tuned his ears to his surroundings, ignoring all natural sounds, bird calls, water, distant and not approaching vehicles. It left him with two or three people approaching from the north, on bikes, and one person, approaching from the west, slowly, on foot.

He classified the group as probably civilians, and set a portion of his mind to keeping track of their approach. The other's foot steps indicated either heavy encumberment, or else an unnatural limp. In both cases, the pedestrian was attempting to employ stealth. He classified it as possibly, not probably, hostile. He set another portion of his mind to track that approach, and pondered his situation.

His memory was… incomplete at best. Last known memory… consulting Relena on her choice of his replacement. He knew there must be more since he was wearing a Preventer's uniform, even if neither part were his. Furthermore, to his knowledge, Duo hadn't joined the Preventers. And yet, the uniform shirt had been altered to read 'Shinigami' in place of what should have been an embroidered nametag.

That bothered him, being unable to remember. He would have to find Relena. It would not take too long, since he had designed her security system himself, and left back doors. An aching in his hand drew his gaze downward. His left fingers, all of them, were a glaring pink, and were blistered in places, the skin turning a sick off white.

The group of three was within sight. Two obese teenagers, possibly Heero's age, or slightly younger. One thin teenager, fairly tall, of the same estimable age. "Hey!" One of the group called. "What'ch'ou doin' on our lot, huh?" Heero calculated them to be a non-threat, and turned his attention to the solitary pedestrian. The figure had sped up, and had come to an awkward run.

When the figure burst from the bushes, wielding a knife, and reeking of blood and filth, Heero imposed himself between the man and the civilians. "Go home." He said clearly.

The man said nothing, sized Heero up, and made to move past him. Heero again stepped between him and the group of teenagers. "Go home." He repeated.

The man sneered. "No way. I just got out prison. Had to kill two guards to do it, too. But now that you've all seen me… guess I'll have to kill you too!" He lunged forward, and

Heero's world narrowed to that one threat. That world did not include the nearly palpable fear of the teenagers, nor did it include his own injuries.

He watched the man's approach, and swept up his left hand, grasping and twisting the man's knife hand. The criminal gasped in pain, and dropped the knife. Heero spun under the man's arm, locking the limb behind his back.

His world expanded again, and he regarded the teenagers over the stranger's shoulder. "If any of you have a cell-phone, call the police.

The police arrived promptly, when Dudley explained that he'd caught an escaped prisoner. "How did he escape in the first place?" Heero asked, after giving his statement.

The police frowned. "It's the damnedest thing, the side of the prison blew out, and no one can figure out why. So keep an eye out for other such people."

The boys, of course, called to tell their parents the 'bone-chilling' news, as they called it. They said they would arrive in two hours to pick him up. Heero made to leave.

"Wait." The fattest of them yelled as he walked away. "You're pretty good for a scrawny kid." There was a calculating look in his eyes that reminded Heero of the first time he had met Dr. J. If Heero had had less self-control, he might have shivered. As it was, he said nothing. "Where do you live?" the boy continued.

"No where. I'm… new to the area." Heero said. "I just moved from… Brussels, after I terminated my previous contract."

"'Contract'? What? Do you work?" The boy asked. Heero nodded.

"What at?"

"Many things. My most recent job was as a bodyguard to the Vice Foreign Minister."

"A body guard? But you're my age!" The boy's eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

"I was trained from a very young age. My skills are high above those of anyone… traditionally trained in my fields of specialty." He said, and then waited for the boy to process that information.

"Wow! That's so cool!" He said. "Hey, why don't you stay at my place?" he offered, and Heero shrugged.

"Acceptable."

"I'm Dudley. Dudley Dursley." The boy offered a hand, three times the size of Heero's.

"Heero Yuy." Heero shook Dudley's hand, and sat among Dudley and his friends, introduced as 'Dennis' and 'Piers'. Dudley started off on a tale of some 'glorious escapade' he called it, but Heero thought it more consisted of beating up someone weaker than him, poisoning his body with drugs, and then deceiving his parents. Still, he had to get better at dealing with the general population, so he listened and grunted in what he thought were appropriate places.

"You're not much of a what-do-ya-call-it… a talker, are you?" Dennis asked.

Heero met the boy's eyes, and shook his head. "It's one of my failings." Heero frowned. "It… bothers me."

Dudley, Heero suspected, would have commented, but that a very new, very shiny car appeared. "Hey there's Dad!" Dudley stood, and Heero mirrored his movements. A man even fatter than Dudley opened the passenger door. "Come on in boys!"

Dudley approached first. "Hey Dad." He said. "This is Heero, he's gonna be staying with us a few days."

The man frowned. "Well Duds, I'm not sure that will be a good idea."

"He's a bodyguard, Dad! He can keep us safe from.. you know. _Him_." The man abruptly smiled.

"Well come on in, boys. Heero, is it? Why don't you sit up here so I can talk to my Dudley's newest friend?" Heero got in the car after a second, automatically checking it for bombs, and checking the road for any potential suspects.

The car ride consisted of Heero answering Dudley's father's questions absently mindedly, while gathering his whereabouts by the signs they passed. England… Surrey… Then… Little Whinging? Heero frowned and reviewed the maps of England he had reviewed for Relena's campaign tour during the last election. He hadn't seen any Little Whinging on the map.

The car he was in wound through the streets, and Heero made notes on the stores and landmarks (such as they were) that they passed. They turned down Privet Drive, and stopped in front of Number Four. A weedy boy perhaps a year younger than Dudley knelt in the garden, wearing loose fitting jeans that were belted in place, and glaring heatedly at the car.

"Duddykins!" A woman with a remarkable resemblance to a cross between Dorothy, a heron, and Relena, with all of the former's looks, and all the latter's capacity to put his teeth on edge, swooped down on them to envelope Dudley in a hug that barely reached halfway around his massive girth. The weedy boy rolled his eyes, and pulled up yet another plant.

Heero got up from the car, and looked around them. Several nosy neighbors were peeking over fences, and some small children played what Heero had heard referred to as 'hackey' a few houses down. He relaxed as much as he could in an unfamiliar environment, and turned back to the teenagers, and Dudley's parents, who were fussing over Dudley, who was trying unsuccessfully to make them leave. There was a funny look on his face as he did so, though Heero couldn't puzzle out what it meant.

Abruptly, Dudley seemed to remember him. "Mum, this is Heero, he'll be staying with us a couple days." The woman didn't look particularly happy, Heero thought. He looked up, and estimated it to be a three-bedroom house. Assuming that Dudley was their only child, there should be no problem.

"But Duddy-kins," the heron woman said nervously. "There's only three bedrooms…" Heero felt eyes on him, and glanced at the weedy boy, who was glaring at him. Heero looked at his build and came to the conclusion that he had no particular skill in any martial art. There were no visible calluses on his hands. Heero doubted he was any threat, and also came to the realization that there was a seventy nine percent likelihood that he lived in the Dursley household as well.

"I'll find a hotel, if necessary." Heero said, because even he could see the stormy look growing on Dudley's face that matched the growing looks of… fear? That didn't sound right. He needed to research human relations more… on his parents' faces.

The two adults turned to him, and gave him abrupt, sickening smiles. "Oh nonsense!" Vernon said, "You'll stay here." He turned to the boy in the garden. "Boy, move your things out of your room, Heero here is going to borrow it. You can sleep on the couch. And I mean _all_ your things." He gave a glare that Heero thought was strange. But then, civilians were strange. You could never be quite sure when they would understand you, and when they would take offense to perfectly acceptable measures.

The boy looked about to protest, his glare at Heero growing even more heated, when once again, Heero cut in, surprising himself this time. "I'll sleep on the couch. It would be more efficient." The boy blinked, as if momentarily startled out of his anger, and then looked at Heero warily.

"Oh, um…" Dudley's parents looked surprised, and glanced at Dudley before hesitantly agreeing to his suggestion.

Heero followed them into the house, while Dudley boasted about his 'brush up' with danger. Heero privately disagreed; neither the boy nor his friends had been in danger at any time, but he said nothing. It wasn't his concern.

By the time dinner was served, Heero had gained the use of Dudley's computer ('newest model', the boy had proudly declared), and discovered it was useless for all but the simplest of hacking attempts. Damn. He'd have to access his funds elsewhere. What alarmed him was the date in the corner of the screen: July 10, 1996.

But computers could lie, though neither the software nor the hardware (when he examined it, as Dudley was in the bathroom at the time) showed any signs of hacking or tampering. He asked Dudley the date when the boy returned from the bathroom and was told the same. Therefore, he was either in the midst of a conspiracy, or… no; it had to be a conspiracy. It was impossible that he had traveled six hundred and two years three months and four days, back in time.

Yet, he could find no reason for a conspiracy within his, albeit incomplete, memories, other than his status as a former Gundam Pilot, or as a mode to get at Relena, but he doubted anyone would be stupid enough try and convince him that he had mysteriously traveled back in time. Perhaps it was an elaborate joke on Duo's part; this sounded like something the moron would do.

But Dudley didn't seem like the type Duo would befriend. Their meeting seemed rather random, as well. But Heero had survived through paranoia and physical strength, and 'random' events rarely were. He resolved to keep his eyes open.


	4. Chapter 3

But Magic Doesn't Exist- Chapter 3

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

He was in Wufei's shirt, and it strained against his shoulders as he rolled them. He was in Quatre's pants, and they were uncomfortably tight, and short, the edge coming up to midcalf like some demented version of the capris style teenagers favored. He was tied to a chair, and the room was dark, and furniture was sparse. Had he known what letting go of the edge of the whole that had opened up underneath him in the midst of the fire fight that had been the direct result of the alarms would mean when he had done it, he would have held on. Of course, that was rather self defeating logic. If he hadn't let go, he likely would either be dead, or wishing he had.

He suspected, of course, that his partners had gone through the same fate, and hoped… yes, hoped was the right word, that they sustained no injury. Wufei had been forced to draw his sword, and stay tight amidst a knot of ene- suspects when the bullets from Trowa's Luger had run out.

It was rather a mess. Despite Wufei's insinuations, all five of the Preventers had been caught unaware by the time, and had hastily assembled clothing to wear, each glad (for those awake enough to appreciate it) that they were close enough in size to be able to wear each other's clothing, if uncomfortably.

Even as both wars ended, they'd retained their short statures to a reasonable degree. Duo's malnutrition as a child had kept him close to Wufei's ethnically typical 5 feet 3 inches. The number of growth suppressants in Heero's body had left him nearly unable to grow at all- the man was lucky to achieve the five foot nine he'd grown to- and left him at the same height as Quatre, who'd hit a second growth spurt soon after the Eve War, leaving Trowa, as always, the tallest, achieving a little less than six feet.

Trowa, tied to the chair, noted idly that the gun underneath Wufei's shirt had an engraving. It was Duo's then. Duo had taken such care with his Preventer issue weapon, treasuring it as he had treasured his Gundam, and had done the engraving himself: Hellmaker.

Apparently, they'd shared guns as well as clothes, since, if he had Duo's gun, Duo must have someone else', and it couldn't be Wufei's, because Heero had taken that. Which put… either Heero's or Quatre's gun in Duo's hand, Wufei's missing, after Heero had tossed it away in favor of a sniper, which he'd used from a staircase (Trowa remembered the confusion that followed a metal on metal clatter clearly), Quatre's or Heero's gun in the blonde's hand, and Wufei with an empty clip and a sword.

As spread out as they had been in the room, not including Duo's absence from the scene altogether, no doubt he would be searching for some time before he found his companions. Added to which was his location: the walls were dank, and smelled of mildew, and he doubted that the metal warehouse they'd been in had a stone basement. He didn't feel like any memories were missing, not like his temporary amnesia that had left him wondering if he could trust the closest thing to friends he'd allowed himself to have after Midii. It was logical to believe, therefore, that his memories were complete, and the fall, during which he had avoided head injury only with the help of his circus training, followed by the urgent need to sleep were everything there was to remember. What happened while he slept was an entirely different story.

The door, the only other feature of the room, opened soundlessly. In the doorway stood a dark figure outlined by the light from behind. The man, he guessed the figure's gender from the distance between the man's legs as his captor strode forward, came to stand directly in front of him. The man reached into a pocket of the- robes? Perhaps,- clothing he was wearing, and murmured '_Lumos_'. The effect was that light, emitted from the end of a stick the man held in his hand, filled the room with a soft glow.

It was a small room, perhaps six paces wide, though Trowa couldn't be certain how long, since no acrobat, no matter how flexible, could twist his neck one hundred and eighty degrees. The man had long stringy hair, that looked as greasy as Duo's after working endless hours on a car; sallow skin, as if he were suffering from a Hepatitis A infection; an overlarge nose, as out of place as Catalonia's eyebrows, and a sneer on his face, reminiscent of Wufei in one of his worse moods. Aside from that, he didn't look particularly strong, and lost the hand to hand combat Trowa mentally laid out.

"Who are you?" The man asked, and Trowa said nothing. At one time, he might have said 'No one', just to taunt the man, but it would be untrue now, and the situation was… filled with so many unknowns that Trowa believed it would be safer to keep his silence.

An eyebrow went up, and the stick leveled itself at him. The light nearly blinded his eyes, but Trowa resisted the urge to blink. The other eyebrow joined its partner, and the sallow skinned man smiled darkly.

"_Legilimens_," he uttered, and Trowa found his memories coming back to him, some lasting, other fading away nearly as quickly as he thought of them: stepping from the shadows as Trowa Barton was shot, and taking his name; accepting aid from Quatre, but not trusting, no he couldn't trust, didn't dare, not after Midii; acting as Une's aid, before ultimately betraying OZ, oh the secrets she'd revealed; returning to undercover, only to find Wufei had betrayed him, and taken the place he'd hoped to attain as most trusted soldier to Barton; going over the specs of one his joint miss- standing before a blonde boy who called him a strange name, and called him, too, lover, and yet he didn't know him, hadn't ever met him before; suddenly remembering, in the midst of a mobile suit battle that the blonde boy was Quatre, and a friend and his lover, and in danger; holding Quatre as he shoo- firing round after round in the warehouse, and then the alarms went off, and Wufei snarled 'Damn Maxwell!' and the mission was forfeit, and soldiers, no suspects, were pouring in from every entrance, and Quatre was down, and they needed to get away, and _run! Run! Run!_, but there was nowhere to go, their exit was cut off, and he tossed Wufei his gun, and then a clatter, and Heero adopted a sniper, and took down suspects from above, and Wufei was out of bullets, and drew his sword from its sheath, launching into the closest circle of suspects, but it wasn't enough, and then the floor opened, and he managed to catch the ledge, but it wasn't safe he'd be caught, and so he let go, and twisted in the air to keep from hitting his head on the floor, wherever it was, and then he simply had to sleep-

and he was staring at the man as he was released from his memories.

"Wh… what the hell?" he asked, the words released from his mouth in the midst of tortured gasps. His chest had tightened, hurting from the memories of the war, of his amnesia, of the second war, and finally the fight that had brought him here and the man was looking as him from the corner of his eye as Trowa struggled to bring his trembling body back to its regular stillness.

"I found you," the man began, almost casually, "at the bottom of the cliff that is contained in my property. I thought it impossible that anyone could break my wards without my knowledge, and brought you here for interrogation… you're very, _very_ lucky that you didn't splinch yourself." He finished with a sneer, and Trowa asked, without thinking,

"Splinch?"

"Yes. You accidentally apparated. In your…" he paused, almost imperceptibly as he the words were already slowly spoken, "battle, the desire to _flee_," the already present sneer tainted the word, and set Trowa teeth on edge, "was so great that the untrained magic within you brought you here. Surprising, but not impossible. I suppose I'll have to train you, now."

Trowa blinked. "Train me? For what?"

With a flick, and muttered word, the bindings around him faded out of existence, and Trowa stood. "That," the man said. "Magic."

"Magic doesn't exist," Trowa said, rubbing one arm.

"Then where are the ropes?" The man pointed out, with a smug smile, and Trowa blinked, not answering.

"Come with me." And Trowa followed.

The man was far more forth coming later, once Trowa had, beyond doubt, been convinced of the existence of magic. To the pilot's credit, it only took a message from a man named Dumbledore, in which the head of said man appeared in the fire place, to convince him.

Severus Snape, his captor, turned host and mentor for the summer, had requested that Trowa be put on the 'Hogwarts' student list, and Dumbledore had seemed amused, and told the Potions Master to 'bring Mr. Barton around for tea sometime'.

Immediately after, Snape had taken Trowa shopping, and the performer soon found himself in possession of a stick of his own, and all the other necessary amenities for a student of Hogwarts.

Snape had answered his questions about magic, the wizarding world, and the date (/_July 1996/_, he had thought with a healthy, if invisible, measure of hysteria) patiently, although as sarcastically, and rudely as he could. Trowa didn't mind. If the man was anything like Wufei, and he did seem to be, there was a good heart underneath, and Trowa was well used to Wufei's barbs, in any case.

Having returned from shopping, Snape began to show him the art of potion making, which Trowa found to be enough like Chemistry that he had few problems, Arithmancy, much like advanced maths combined into what Duo might have called an 'evil bitch of a mess', and when it grew late, Astronomy, and seemed pleased to find that Trowa knew at least the theory behind all three.

It was charms that proved difficult. While Trowa had no problem learning the wand movements, and the incantations, the feather before him stayed resolutely immobile.

He tried again. "_Wingardium Leviosa._" Flick, swish, emphasis on the '_gar'_, and the '_osa_', and… nothing. He couldn't even blame it on his distinctly non-British accent. Wizards from all around the word knew this particular spell, and preformed it masterfully.

"Focus!" Snape snapped, watching him through narrowed eyes. "Focus on what you want the spell to do!"

It was far more difficult than it seemed, only marginally less difficult than not thinking about a word that you've been told not to think about. Trowa tried again, and failed again. He allowed a glare to cross over his features. He pictured, in his mind, the feather floating, and tried again.

The feather twitched. It was a marginal success, at best, but better than the last few times he'd tried. The greatest problem, he supposed, was that he could not focus on what he wanted it to do, since he cared very little about the success or failure of such a simple and unimportant spell.

What concerned his thoughts far more, at the time, was the fate of his companions. If they had been left behind, they would have no doubt been captured by the very organization they'd sought to destroy. If lucky, they would have been held ransom, and thus been given a chance to escape. If unlucky, they would have been shot on sight, and not even Heero Yuy could have survived a bullet to the brain.

He forced the thoughts from his head, and tried a simple exercise that had served him well when he had taken undercover jobs during the war, and had had to pretend to care about the same things his co-workers, or fellow students cared about. He slipped into a false persona, and assumed its identity.

Abruptly, he was Lee Gared, a Hogwarts student, and only concerned with passing his tests and learning magic, because the spells were just so cool!

"I told you to focus!" Snape snapped, "What part of your underdeveloped brain can't understand that?"

Lee started, and tensed. He wasn't used to teachers being mad at him. But he was also single-minded enough to actually be able to focus when told, and that was the real reason behind Trowa's choice.

Lee's mind focused on the feather, and uttered the words of power. Under his wands direction… the feather began to gently float upward, tilting on its sides as it would if it were falling, and it was, really, just in the wrong direction.

Things went much smoother after that. Snape was even satisfied to the point of giving Lee a backhanded compliment as he mastered each and every spell set to him with startling ability.

"Not so bad," the man said, "for with such poor performance in his first attempts."

And that was that.


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: This should be Quatre's chapter, but it isn't. In subsequent chapters, the chapters will follow a 'Duo, Wufei, Heero, Trowa, Quatre' pattern in regards to who the chapter concerns, right up until I decide to shove in some other scene that doesn't involve any of them… Erm… That isn't really a pattern, is it? Ah well, you get the point.

But Magic Doesn't Exist- Chapter 4

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

Duo looked up into brown eyes, and figured he'd forgotten something. "Leave me _alone_, 'Fei, I'll do it later!" Then he rolled over on his side, and buried his head into cushions too hard to be from his bed, and registered something disturbing. The brown eyes had sat within a pale face, too pale to be Wufei's, it was feminine, something the Asian couldn't even be remotely considered, and the fluff of brown hair wasn't 'Fei's either.

Cautiously, he glanced back at the girl, who stared at him with an expression that could have been Trowa's, it was so blank. Of course, she was pointing a stick at him, which kinda of ruined the imitation.

"Fuck," he said, sitting up. "This is _not_ gonna look good on my record." Provided he survived, provided he wasn't taken hostage, provided he managed to get out of here, and to the nearest base undetected, provided he caught up with his co-workers, he _might_ survive this experience, Unely-wrath free.

"What are you doing in my house?" The stick didn't waver, and the girl gave him a hard stare.

Duo blinked, and tried to remember. He'd been running… the alarms had been going off… yellows lights, like with Zero, but much less creepy… and then… "I crashed."

She looked at his form, half on the couch, and half off, and said, "I noticed. Why did you crash in my house?"

"Provided this isn't some sort of concussion induced fantasy? I haven't a clue. Can you hallucinate because of a concussion?"

"No," she informed him.

"Yeah, says my concussion hallucination," Duo muttered, and then sat up. Or rather, he _tried_ to sit up. His legs hadn't made it onto the couch and sitting up ended with him on the floor.

The stick was pointed at him from above, and Duo was beginning to get annoyed with the chick. What was a stick going to do, anyway?

"Who are you?" She demanded. Damn. Phrased like that…

"Duo Maxwell," he said, grudgingly. He didn't add his motto.

"And what are you doing here?"

"I told you," he damn near growled, "I have no fucking idea!" He figured… he could get rid of her in five seconds flat, which was good, because he really didn't have time to mess around with some general's daughter while his best friends were captured, possibly dead, and he needed to get back up.

His gaze flickered to the window. He should be able to see the corridor, at least; check how many guards were running around looking for him. His eyes widened. Outside was… outside. There were… trees and stuff!

"Where the fuck am I?" he asked, shooting up from the ground, and pressing his face to the window. Trees and cars (really old models, like he was in a car mechanics paradise, maybe he was dead?) and a _park_ that had _kids_ playing with, like, dogs and stuff, and a cute little bunny was hopping by, and holy shit, he was _so_ not in Kansas anymore!

"London." She answered curtly. "How can you not know where you are?" she asked, and yeah, _now_ he figures out her accent is British.

"Last I checked, lady, I was in Australia!" he looked back at her, and her jaw dropped. He rooted around his pants pocket, and yeah, they were his pants, but Heero'd handed him Quatre's shirt, so it was, of course, in a pristine condition he'd never manage to keep. It wasn't like he was a slob or anything, it was just Quatre had _servants_, and they were _trained_ to keep stuff looking like they'd just come from the store.

So his fingers finally found his wallet, and they pulled out his Preventer ID, still nice and shiny (hey, he could take care of stuff!), and flipped it at her. She dropped the stick, trying to catch it.

"Preventers?" she asked, mystified.

"Yeah. You know… big organization they set up after the first war, and got a huge boost after the second one?"

She frowned. "I've read my history texts cover to cover. It never mentioned Preventers."

Duo snorted. "Then you, fine lady, need new texts. It was a huge thing, on par with Relena taking up her mantle as Queen of the World, and Marie declaring war." And Wufei joining her… Damn that had hurt. He'd thought Wufei was on their side, and then Heero tells him he's against them, and fuck! Trowa did it to. That had hurt, finding out both of them were out of their minds.

The girl's eyebrows went up. "Queen of the World?" She frowned again. "Maybe you are hallucinating. There has never been a queen of the world. Queen of the British Empire, maybe, but as far as I know, none of the Queens have been named 'Relena', nor have there been any 'Marie's who declared war in quick succession. Or any 'Marie' declaring any wars at all."

Duo's jaw dropped. Him? Hallucinating? No…! Clearly he'd wandered into a mental hospital in his desperate flight from Australia, and she was one of the patients. Explained the stick, certainly. "What war are _you_ thinking of?"

"Any of them," she said, stubbornly. "I've read my history texts, and none of Earth's wars were declared by anyone named 'Marie' or any of its variations. What are _you_ thinking of?"

"The Eve War," he said, plainly. "And the Mobile Suit Wars. You know, the ones that all happened within the last, oh, three years?"

She glared. "They didn't happen. There have been no wars for fifty years!"

Duo glared right back. "I know they did, because I _fought in them_!"

"Mom!" she called up the stairs, and snatched up her stick again. "Have there been any wars in the last fifty years?"

"No," came the tremulous response. "Is it safe to come down?"

She looked at Duo hard, and then yelled, "Yes!" Her parents, the family resemblance was there, came down the stairs, and Duo thought nasty things about them because they let their kid handle a potentially dangerous situation. Of course, so did Wufei's parents, but he thought nasty things about them, too.

"You're a family of nutcases," he said.

"_We're_ nutcases?" The girl demanded.

"You sure as shit are!" Duo exploded. "You're trying to tell me that the war I lost my friends to, my _family_ to, never happened! What do you _think_ I'm going to say? 'Oh you must be right, because you have a stick'?"

"It's not a stick! It's a _wand_!" She yelled back, and that brought Duo up short.

He giggled. "A wand?"

She nodded, and Duo moved from giggling to outright laughter, and soon he was rolling on the floor, holding his stomach and laughing for all he was worth. He figured it might have something to do with the absurdity of crashing on a London couch, only to start arguing with a, what? Sixteen year old? A sixteen year old girl holding a stick. But it's not a stick, it's a _wand_.

"God!" he gasped. "This has got to be the stupidest argument I've ever had! And that includes arguing over whether I could give Shenlong a big pink happy face!"

The girl reached over to a book shelf and pulled out a book. She tossed it to him, and he caught it without looking. Working with Trowa had its advantages: you stopped needing to _look_ to catch projectile objects. And he was a sexy piece of eye candy.

"Look," she said. "It's a book of modern history. And there are _no_ wars for fifty years." She looked like she was holding something back, and Duo opened the cover while asking, 'you sure about that?' She nodded.

His eyes looked at the first page. "History of Current Events… 1995?" He knew this book. Quatre had a copy, 'cause all rich guys had copies of really old books; it was like, requisite to being a rich guy. You put all your money into buying flammable objects.

"No wonder it's not in here!" he said. "This is, like, an antique. Well preserved, but still an antique."

"It is not!" the girl looked offended, and Duo pointed at the cover.

"Sorry sexy, but 1995 was, like, six hundred years ago. It's an antique." He handed the book back to her, carefully, 'cause Wufei had drilled 'care of old books' into him during the Mobile Suit Wars, and the chick looked like she might follow the same philosophy as the Feister.

"What are you talking about? It's 1996!" She handed him a newspaper.

"July 10, 1996…" Duo murmured. "Dude, it's like, six hundred years ago!" Duo turned wide eyes to the girl. "Shit. Unely-baby's gonna have my ass for sure!"

"What year are you from?" the girl asked, like time travel was an option, and total insanity wasn't.

"197 AC," he said numbly. How the hell was he gonna get help for the others if he was a) hundreds of years in the past, or b) insane?

"I see," she said. "That explains why I haven't heard of those wars. They haven't happened yet." Her manner was abruptly kind, and she gave him a comforting smile.

"Oh yeah, like it's possible that I've accidentally stumbled not only from a base in Australia straight onto your couch, but six hundred years back in time?"

"Yes, it is," she said, and Duo shook his head.

"More likely, I've lost my mind, or I've been captured, and pumped full of hallucinogens," he said. He concentrated, but no Easter bunny appeared, so he figured it had to be the first.

She gave him an impatient look, and sat on the floor beside him. "Mom?" she asked.

"Yes dear?" The woman looked between them like she wasn't sure exactly what was going on, and wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"You an' me both, lady," Duo muttered under his breath, as the woman and her husband exited through an adjoining door, having agreed to make tea. He didn't want tea, actually, only Wufei liked that shit, but he wasn't going to push his luck.

The girl laid a hand on his arm. "What do you remember from right before you collapsed?" she asked, and Duo wondered how much he could tell her without compromising his mission… just in case he _was_ pumped with drugs and those bastards were listening to his ramblings.

"Uh… I was running down a hallway, trying to find a place to hide, 'cause I fucked up majorly, and the alarms were going off… and then I stumbled in here… and collapsed. I felt really, really tired. So I kinda crashed on the couch." There. Nothing the bastards wouldn't already know, and just enough to satisfy the girl.

The girl was frowning. "An accidental apparition? Could be," she muttered, and then her parents came back with tea, and Duo sniffed it hesitantly before taking the barest of sips. It was good, not like the bitter crap Wufei liked, and he didn't taste anything even remotely drug like, unless it was sugar, so he took a bigger sip, and trusted the immunity Professor G had had him build up pre-piloting to protect him from anything they'd slipped in.

"Mom, Dad, this is Duo Maxwell. I think he may have accidentally apparated back in time."

"And across the world," he added. And then: "Hey, I don't know who you people are." It was a veiled dig for info. If they didn't answer, then he'd know something was suspicious, and he could always do research later, if they answered… and the drugs, if he was on them, were bound to wear off sometime. And if they didn't, it wasn't like he could do anything anyway.

"Hermione Granger," the girl answered, "and these are my parents, Edward and Jane Granger."

"Nice to meet'cha." And then he groaned, "Oh, that caffeine feels good… Missed my coffee yesterday, had to work without coffee, and wearing someone else' shirt," he laughed. "Damn Heero. Missed my chance to get into his pants."

Hermione's eyebrows went up again. "What?"

"Had to leave in the middle of my nap. No time for coffee, and no time to find my own clothes," he took a sip, gasping as the hot liquid hit his tongue, "so I put on whatever I got my hands on." He shook his head. "Managed to get my pants, but this, is most certainly not my shirt."

Hermione smiled. "Oh, okay," she said, like he hadn't told her a grand sum of squat.

Abruptly, she turned to her parents. "Mum, Dad, can Duo stay here until I can contact Professor Dumbledore, or figure out how to send him home?"

Her parents looked like fish out of water, Duo observed from under his bangs.

"Hermione, you can't take in every stray," Edward admonished. Hermione's eyebrows drew together, and Duo shook his head.

"Naw, it's okay, I'll find a hotel or something. I've got-" he paused, unable to finish. He had been going to say 'enough funds for an extended vacation', but that wasn't true anymore. Not only could he not access the funds from various OZ resources, but he couldn't access his own Preventer pay check filled bank account. Fuck. He was stuck, and there was no way he was going back to the streets. Once was enough in a lifetime.

"Uh… nevermind. I guess my bank card won't work." Not that he had it with him. All of his cards, except his Preventer ID were at home, in his nice little apartment six blocks from Preventer headquarters. But not knowing that wouldn't make a difference to these people, even if they were real. He was still seriously considering total insanity as a viable reason.

"Please?" Hermione said, looking like Quatre after Trowa told him he couldn't go out to play with the orphans; their pictures had been circulating and Trowa wasn't going to lose his lover over an orphan. Duo remembered being kinda offended by that until he remembered that most of the kids were orphans because of _them_.

They drew Hermione aside, and they conversed. Duo wanted to read their lips, but the angle was awkward, and he wasn't a walking camera/dictionary/computer like Heero, just a fallible little God of Death.

Abruptly, a smile blossomed over Hermione's features, and she bounced over. "You can stay!" she exclaimed, "as long as you get rid of the gun." She nodded at his weapon. Okay, not _his_ weapon, Quatre's weapon, but possession was nine-tenths of the law, and Quatre sure as hell wasn't here.

He shrugged. "Sure," it wasn't like he couldn't pick up something sleeker, smaller, and cooler after a few hours with a decent computer. Besides, unlike _some_ people, he didn't need a gun to feel safe. The God of Death had power over _all_ humanity; he didn't need no gun!


	6. Chapter 5

A/N: And now for Quatre! And before you ask, no, I don't consider either of the characters in this chapter to be OOC. In Episode Zero, we see that Quatre was a brat with low self-esteem as a child, and Draco would hardly be condescending to people he considered his social equal/better. Let's just say that the Winners haven't always been muggles. They haven't always been pacifists, either.

But Magic Doesn't Exist- Chapter 5

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

Quatre Winner gazed disinterestedly at the boy before him. They had the same flaxen hair, the same pale skin, and, Quatre thought, probably the same status. The boy certainly looked as if he were the son of the head of a multinational corporation.

The boy stared at Quatre… probably recognizing who he was, which Quatre supposed he should be used to by now, but somehow he wasn't. He'd found, upon waking, that he'd been kidnapped, forced to wear the ill fitting clothes of his captors: a Yuy and a Barton, if the tags were to be believed, though he doubted either of them were related to _the_ Heero Yuy, or the Barton Foundation. The first was dead, and had no blood relatives, and the Barton Foundation would hardly be stupid enough to leave him alive, even if, in some fit of insanity, they'd been stupid enough to kidnap him.

Not that his family would care; if he ended up dead, his father could just take another woman's eggs and 'sire'- Quatre used the term only in the strictest of senses- another heir. With that in mind, it didn't really matter who his captors were, did it? He'd either die, or wouldn't, and if no one else cared, why should he?

The boy glared at him with a haughty sneer, and Quatre supposed maybe his body double (except for the eyes, wrong color altogether) _didn't _know who he was. The boy confirmed it a second later. "Who are you?" The sneer seemed familiar, but Quatre couldn't remember where he'd seen arrogance of that intensity, nor did he suppose that he wanted to remember.

"I'm Quatre Winner. My father is the head of Winner Enterprises." Quatre said, and recognition flared in the boy's eyes. He smiled, but it was a strange sort of smile, like Quatre had seen in movies, like the bad guys when they think they're going to win. The weighty feeling in his chest twisted and turned, nauseating, and confusing at once. Quatre ignored it. The smile was beautiful, because it was from one equal to another, not those smiles that the populace gave him when they hoped to gain something by being sycophants. The smile was genuine.

"A Winner?" The boy asked. "Where are your parents?" he looked around, as if he'd find them hiding behind some tree with a camera, like the paparazzi used to do.

"I don't know," Quatre said, shrugging. "I think I've been kidnapped."

"Think? Don't you know?" The boy might have sneered, but he didn't.

"I think some of my memories are missing," Quatre clarified, and the boy shrugged.

"Oh. I can't help you then. I know how to _obliviate_, but I don't know how to reverse it."

"_Obliviate_?" Quatre asked, "What's that?"

The boy's jaw dropped. "You don't know what _obliviate_ is? What about _crucio_? _Wingardium Leviosa_? _Alohamora_?"

Quatre shook his head in the pause between words, and the boy looked at Quatre like he'd never quite seen anyone like him before.

"A lot of your memory must be missing, then," the boy said, and it occurred to Quatre that he didn't know the boy's name.

"Who are you?" he asked, and the boy drew himself up to his full height, looking regal, but somehow less beautiful, filled with pride.

"My name is Draco Lucien Edric Malfoy. Call me Draco."

Quatre nodded. "Only if you'll call me Quatre." He smiled, and the boy smiled back.

"Don't worry," he said, "my mom and I can refresh your memory. The Malfoys are old friends of the Winners."

Quatre shrugged, not particularly caring, since he had never heard of the Malfoys, nor was he a particularly good Winner. But so long as he could stay with _one_ person who didn't want him to be the 'image of a man', or the perfect heir, or really expect him to know anything, to do anything other than things normal twelve year olds did, Quatre supposed that being with a friend of the family was a good thing.

"So, how old are you?" Draco asked, turning to walk away, holding a stick in his hand.

"Twelve," Quatre said, following. "I just turned."

Draco gave him an odd look. "Are you sure you were kidnapped?" he asked, and Quatre just knew he had said something to throw himself into doubt.

"Well, I'm not wearing my clothes, for one, and for two, I have no idea where I am, and for three, the last thing I remember was taking a business trip with my father, to Milan," Quatre retorted rather nastily, not at all liking that someone had doubted his word. Winners were always good for their word.

"Maybe you just forgot a lot more than you think you did. You don't look twelve, you look my age, and I'm sixteen."

Quatre frowned. It was true there was a great gaping hole in his memory, but surely it didn't span four years.

"And that would explain why you don't recognize even first year spells. I hear Middle Eastern countries don't start training until puberty, thirteen at the latest."

"I haven't hit puberty yet," Quatre murmured, agreeing, "At least, I don't remember it."

"Well, there you go. And here we are!" Draco pointed up at the great house, large even by Quatre's standards that stood before them. In the garden little creatures like Christmas elves worked, planting strange flowers, watering, pruning, pulling up weeds, and generally making themselves useful.

Draco strode in like it was his house, which it probably was. The rooms they past through were elegantly decorated, though the colors seemed restricted to green, silver, and black. Quatre rather thought a dash of red, blue, or gold might brighten the house, but he said nothing, since it wasn't his house, and maybe the Malfoys liked the color scheme. He couldn't imagine why.

A tall man, like an adult Draco, entered the dining room at the same time as Draco and Quatre. Draco ran to his father's embrace, while the man gave Quatre a speculative look. "Who is this, son?" The man asked, and Draco answered, while Quatre did his best not to quail in man's gaze.

"One of the Winners, father. He's been obliviated, so he only remembers up to being twelve."

The man's mouth moved, and though Quatre couldn't hear his response, he knew what the man was saying: "Just far enough back to forget magic."

"Yes," Quatre said. "And I wondered if I might be able to contact my father."

The man looked at him speculatively again, and Quatre stood proudly. He was a Winner, and even if his father didn't really care, Draco seemed to care, which meant Draco's father probably cared, and since Quatre's father wasn't here, he supposed what his father did or didn't care about didn't matter much.

"Yes, of course," the man said, and held out his hand. "Lucius Malfoy."

"Quatre Winner," Quatre shook his hand, and looked for a phone.

"Do you have your wand with you?" Mr. Malfoy said. "Although," he frowned "I'm sure your captors wouldn't allow you to keep your wand, if they went to such lengths to erase your memory."

"I don't think they would," Quatre smiled wryly, "Of course, they might have. I woke up in the woods, so it might be there, and I just didn't see it."

"How do you mean?" Draco asked. "A wand isn't just a stick."

Quatre turned back to the boy. "I can't even remember ever being told magic existed, much less having a wand, or learning spells or anything like that. How would I know what a wand looks like?"

"Surely your father had one. Or your mother." Quatre shook his head at Draco's exclamation. He didn't remember anything like that.

"My mother's dead, and my father couldn't care less about me. I'm not a natural child."

The Malfoys looked between each other, and a strangely dark look overcame their features. "If I may," the older of the two began. "May I look at your memories? It's a simple process, and painless."

Quatre blinked. "Of course."

The man raised his wand- at least, Quatre supposed that's what it was, and he had to agree it was different from a stick- and muttered '_Legilimens_'. Quatre went back through his memories, one at a time, each one carefully perused as if it might hold some clue. He didn't resist, because really, his life wasn't all that interesting: a test tube baby, and replaceable.

Abruptly, as his memories came to the point where he awoke in strange clothes with a boy very similar to him in appearance standing over him, Quatre found himself staring, calmly, at Lucius Malfoy, who was laughing as if he had heard a particularly funny joke.

When his laughter died down, Lucius favored Quatre with an indulgent smile. "Your memories have clearly been altered. The Winners, a pacifist muggle family?" He and Draco burst out in laughter, and Quatre even found himself chuckling along, though he didn't know what a muggle was, and he didn't see anything wrong with being pacifist. Of course, if his memories had been altered, he wouldn't.

Lucius continued. "Draco, take young Quatre shopping. I will contact the Winners and explain the situation."

"Of course, father." Draco smiled, and grabbed Quatre's hand. "Well, come on! Let's go!"

Lucius Malfoy entered his study, lighting the fireplace with a twitch of his wand. He would deal with this immediately. He was glad that he and the Winners kept such close contact. Waiting for the besieged family to respond would be such a bother, especially since he, out of courtesy, would not be able to mention the precise reason for the call.

He tossed a handful of floo powder into the fireplace, and stepped into the green, flickering flames. "Achmed Winner residence." It was a gut wrenching experience, flooing, and he tried not to as much as he could, but both of the families' residences were warded against apparition.

His countenance darkened. He would have to punish Draco, as soon as the boy returned. He knew he was restricted from going to that area of the forest: the magic was twisted, and the wards refused to function properly. As such, he'd blocked off the area so that only the head of the Malfoy family, Lucius himself, could enter or leave that section of property. Clearly, the boy had found a way to manipulate the wards around that area of the forest, so that he might come and go as he pleased, and bring guests with him.

Stupid boy! Didn't he realize the wards were there for his protection? If Black, or some other blood traitor were to stumble upon the manipulated wards, the entire house's security could, would be compromised.

Resolutely, he put such issues from his mind, in order to deal with the matter at hand: the boy named Quatre Winner. Abdul, Achmed's cousin, was well known for the way he had taken Muhammad's teachings to heart, especially the one stating that a man could take as many wives as he could support, and also for some of those wives being foreigners- so long as they were pure bloods. Achmed would never stand for a mudblood relative, and at least Abdul had the sense to submit to his brother's authority in that case.

But if the boy's memories had been altered, he might not really be a Winner; the situation merited a visit to Achmed, who would certainly know if any of Abdul's children had gone missing. Achmed was at his desk when Lucius strode in.

"By Allah!" the Arabian householder cried. "Lucius it has been too long!"

"Indeed," Lucius shook the man's hand, and sat in the guest's seat. "You have been busy." He looked meaningfully around the study, covered in maps of the area, and lists.

"Yes, I'm afraid that the Al Khaers have not taken the merger with our family well, they have been attacking us on a nearly daily basis."

"Have they kidnapped anyone?" Lucius asked. Achmed looked grim, and nodded.

"Yes. Many of Abdul's children have gone missing. Or so he says, but my cousin has so many, I'm surprised he noticed. How goes the infestation?"

"Well enough," Lucius said, "our order has made many inroads against the mudbloods, thanks to your support."

"I'm only sorry I couldn't give more. But, you know," he ended the sentence there, gesturing around him as if his study was a metaphor for his family's plight.

Lucius gave him a tight smile. "We do not need you _that_ badly," he glared.

Achmed raised his hands in apology. "I did not mean to suggest that you were any less or a wizard. I only wish I could do more, because… well, you know my position on mudbloods." The last was hissed, and though Lucius enjoyed listening to how that stupid woman, Achmed's mother, had nearly ruined the Winner reputation, and more particularly of her fate, he didn't have the time. He held up a hand.

"I'm here on business, Achmed." He admonished, and the Arabian's whole manner changed. His back straightened, and there was shrewd look in his eyes.

"Go on."

"How many sons does Abdul have?"

"Five, and a multitude of daughters."

"What are their names?" Lucius pressed.

"Abdul, first born, named for his father, Muhammad, second born, named for the prophet, Rashid, third born, named for a friend of the family…" he stalled. "And two others, born to a Chinese woman, and an American; I never bothered to find out their names. At least one of them, thankfully, has Abdul's looks. The other is the spitting image of his mother, blonde hair, blue eyes and all."

"Might the boy's name be Quatre?"

Achmed rolled a glass of wine between his fingers. "It might, the woman is French ancestrally, if I recall. And he is the fourth born." Achmed sneered. "It sounds like something Abdul might do." His gaze focused on Lucius. "What is this about?"

"My son found a child on my property. He claims to be a Winner, but his memories have been altered, so the details of his blood are… circumspect."

"Altered?"

"Yes, he's around my son's age, but believes himself to be twelve, and believes the Winners to be a Muggle pacifist family." Lucius couldn't keep a straight face, though he tried. Achmed was in tears, he laughed so hard.

"Altered, indeed," he gasped out. His smile faded. "I wonder what Quatre is doing in England."

"At the moment? Shopping. I had my son replace his wand."

"Ah." Achmed nodded, taking a swig of the red liquid in his glass. He didn't offer Lucius any, not out of discourtesy, as some might have thought, but out of consideration. Lucius would have to floo home, and the last time he'd flooed with alcohol of any amount in his system, he'd vomited upon arrival. "I would hesitate to ask, Lucius, if we were not such good friends, but… it might not be safe for Quatre to return. Might-"

"I would be happy to care for him, if his return would be unsafe," Lucius did not force Achmed to finish his request.

"Thank you, my friend, that is most kind of you." Achmed said, and then turned to more light hearted matters. Their conversation lasted long into the English night.


	7. Chapter 6

But Magic Doesn't Exist- Chapter 6

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

The newspaper hit the breakfast table with a thud, and the owl collapsed on top of it, exhausted. Ginny snatched Errol up, petting his feathers, and talking in a hushed voice, and Wufei did her the courtesy of not listening too closely.

He'd met, apparently, all but two of the Weasleys. Of the two, one was apparently 'a git', which he supposed was an insult, and the other was away on Order business, which he gathered was not. The git, Percy, they hardly spoke of. Charlie, they spoke of often. Nothing of consequence, of course: Wufei had been made to understand that the wizarding world was ensconced in a war.

It nearly made him laugh. Mariemeia had been right: war and peace danced an endless waltz, and not even accidentally apparating (he still wasn't convinced that that was what he'd done) back six hundred years in time had freed him from it. He'd fought one war, started another, and now he'd been thrust into a third through his own cowardice. He was beginning to think he should get an assistant, someone to remind him not to be weak.

Wufei sipped his tea. It was disturbing to think how quickly events had progressed: it had been two weeks, and somehow, he'd been seamlessly incorporated into the family- like the ugly duckling, except this was not his home, his true place. His real family was dead. Wufei tried not to dwell on it, but it was difficult.

"Mum!" Ginny cried out, beside him, and she looked panicked. "He's out!" Molly Weasley, as any mother should, came running at her daughters' cry. She paled at the mention of 'him', and Wufei leaned slightly to look at the newspaper:

**Malfoy Escapes!**

Sixteen wizards were killed last night, in a raid on Azkaban, the wizarding prison. Following the Dementor allegiance to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, wizards and witches from all over Europe have been taking up the gauntlet, guarding the convicts from escape. Last night, as fortune tellers have been predicting for weeks, Azkaban was attacked by Dark Wizards. Many of the prisoners, though not released by the raiders, suspected to be Death Eaters, escaped as soon as their guards were neutralized. Lucius Malfoy, tried and convicted of being a Death Eater escaped along with the rest, and is presumed to be at large. Alan Scrimshaw, the Head of Public Relations had this to say: "All Muggle-borns, student or otherwise, are to be advised that the situation has become very dangerous… we advise that the best action to do is to keep your home well warded, stay in it as much as possible, and follow the safety guidelines put in place last summer."

The safety guidelines mentioned are listed on page seven.

Wufei raised his eyebrows. "Lucius Malfoy?" he asked, and Ginny nodded. While he'd been reading, Molly had begun writing furiously on a piece of parchment, which she finished presently, and tied to Errol's leg. The ancient bird gave a tired hoot and flew through the window.

"Ginny dear, pack your things. You too, Wufei, we're going to be leaving as soon as Dumbledore returns that message."

"Yes mum." Ginny was up in a second, and Wufei followed a step behind.

"What is going on?" He asked, watching Ginny levitating her clothes into a truck. She spared him a glance.

"The Malfoys and the Weasleys have always been enemies," she explained, "With Lucius Malfoy out of Azkaban, the whole family is in danger. This is our listed address, so we're-"

"Running away?" Wufei sneered: he despised cowardice.

Ginny threw him a look so sharp it would have cut him if it were tangible. "What would you have us do? Malfoy doesn't care about whether the curses he casts are Unforgivables or not. He'll torture us, or kill us, or even force us to kill each other without qualms. We can't do the same. We're not fighting a fair battle!"

Wufei's eyebrow twitched. "I lived through two such wars, and I never ran away."

"Then you always fought? You never backed down, even to choose a better battle ground? We can't do that. Mum nearly lost Dad last year, and she nearly lost me, too. Ron's always throwing himself into danger, and Merlin knows if the twins will survive. They only got three OWLs each. Would you have us throw our lives away, staying in a home that the Death Eaters know about?" Ginny glared, and shoved a pile of books in the trunk with more force than necessary.

Wufei remembered the heavy weight of Meiran's body against his, her last breath searing against his skin, the bright burst that might have blinded him if he hadn't closed his eyes in the face of his colony's self-destruction. He silently packed away her potions set, and cleared a space for it in the trunk.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place fit its name to a tee. The dank corridors and dusty rooms reminded Wufei of some of his hiding places on L2. He could easily imagine the London street outside filled with drunks, drug abusers, and prostitutes, as well as urine, vomit and filth. His nose wrinkled.

The paper he'd been handed, and told to read and memorize had read, 'The Headquarters of the Order of the Pheonix resides at Number 12 Grimmauld Place'. The words had been written in elegant script that reminded him of Khushrenada's writing.

"Do you know it?" Molly had asked, taking the paper gently from his hand. Wufei had nodded.

"_Incindio_." She had pointed her wand at it, and it had burst into flame. Wufei watched the ashes float away on the wind, and when he looked back, Grimmauld Place had appeared in all its sinister glory.

The group, comprised of himself, Molly, Ginny, and Ron, had stood at the doorstep, knocked, and a man with a sinister look about him opened the door. Maxwell would have compared it to a haunted house, and Wufei couldn't help but agree. The house looked like it could have come from a well made amusement park.

"And who is this?" The man asked, raising an eyebrow. Wufei's narrowed as he looked at the man's sallow skin, and overlarge nose. He looked him up and down, using what Maxwell had once called his 'best stick-up-his-ass snob snub look'. Wufei had used it many times to convince his fellow students to leave him alone while he was studying. Of course, it had had the unintended effect of making them leave him alone for good, but he was strong enough to exist without friends.

"Chang Wufei," he answered for himself, drawing himself up to his full, though not particularly impressive, height. His entrance into the Mobile Suit Wars had coincided with the end of his only growth spurt and he was stuck at five foot three. He was the shortest of the Gundam pilots: an inch shorter than Duo, whose early childhood malnourishment had stunted his growth permanently, half a foot shorter than Heero and Quatre, and nearly a foot shorter than Trowa, who at least hadn't used his height for something stupid like using Wufei's head as an armrest, as Wufei could easily imagine Maxwell doing.

"Oh really?" the man sneered, and Wufei looked down his nose at the other.

"Yes. Really. And if you need me to clarify what I've just said, then perhaps you should seek the attention of a medical professional."

"If you continue to show such disrespect, _boy_, then it will not be me who needs the medical professional," the man sneered back.

"Severus!" Molly gasped. "How dare you threaten a guest of my family?" She looked ready to kill, herself, and her mouth opened, but Wufei's voice cut through anything she might have said as a head poked out from one of the doors in the hall behind the unsavory man.

"Barton?" Wufei said, slipping past 'Severus' to come to stand in from of his war time ally.

"Chang." A rare smile graced Trowa's lips. "I thought I heard you."

"What are you doing here?" He asked. Trowa had been standing in the kitchen.

"Making dinner," the circus performer turned, stirring one of the simmering pots, and peeking into another.

"I can see that." Wufei said, as Trowa returned to chopping vegetables. "I mean, _here_ here. I thought I was the only one who somehow managed to slip back in time."

"You know him?" Ron said, standing, with Ginny, at the door.

"Yes," Wufei and Trowa at the same time. Trowa waved a hand for Wufei to continue, and returned his attention to 'dinner' which apparently involved mass amounts of meat, vegetables, and, inexplicably, possibly every knife in the kitchen. The set of his shoulders belied his readiness, and the grip on the knife he held could easily be reversed to turn the small implement into a projectile weapon.

"Barton and I work together. We have for years." Wufei said, letting his relaxed tone of voice tell Barton that he trusted the two. Trowa, once finished chopping the chives, stood, and washed his hand. That, he extended to the two Weasleys. Wufei noted that he though he towered over Ginny, the girl didn't back away ('so much like Nataku': the thought flit through his head), and Trowa had an inch on Ron. Good.

'Severus' appeared at the doorway, and glared. "Are you done yet?" he asked, and Trowa's gaze turned to the man.

"Almost, Professor. Dinner will be ready in a few moments," Trowa turned away again, pushing the chives into the simmering pot, and brushed his hands off on his loose robes.

"See that it is. Two more will be joining us, aside from the Weasleys, and," Severus cast a sneer in Wufei's direction, which the Dragon Clan heir returned, "Mr. Chang."

Severus left, and Wufei relaxed, leaning back against the wall. "So, by what unlucky circumstances did you come to reside with Severus?"

Trowa cast him a muted look of surprise. "You don't remember?"

Wufei frowned and shook his head. "I woke up on the Weasleys' property, with a concussion. I don't remember much of the last year. Bits and pieces, and a low priority mission or two. Nothing useful." He shrugged. "You do?"

Trowa nodded. "Everything. I managed not to hit my head on the way down."

He didn't mean it as a jibe, but Wufei narrowed his eyes anyway, and crossed his arms. He glanced at Ginny and Ron, who had stayed silent, watching the exchange. "The explanation can wait," he said suddenly, decisively.

"Oi!" Ron protested, "We want to know what happened, too!" he said, and Ginny nodded. Wufei's frown deepened, but Trowa beat him to the rebuttal:

"Some things," he began, "civilians shouldn't know. For their protection, and for ours."

"We don't need protecting!" Ginny snapped.

"Sure ya do," said a familiar voice, and all eyes turned to Duo, standing in the doorway. He was leaning casually, but sauntered into the kitchen, having gained an appropriately sized audience. A girl rushed in after him, smiling.

"Ron!" She exclaimed, and rushing to give him a hug that the Weasley looked… unsure of what to do about. "Ginny!" She turned her attention to the redhead, who returned her hug with equal force.

"Never turn down protection. It can save your life," Duo sniffed at one of Trowa's pots, and dipped a finger into the other, pulling it out almost instantly with an 'Ow! Ow! Ow! That's hot!', before shoving the offended finger into his mouth. He smiled around the finger, letting it pop from his mouth. "Mmm…" he continued, "Tro-tro's home cooking! Best. Ever." He seemed to consider for a moment, and then: "Needs more salt."

"No it doesn't," Trowa said, tasting it himself.

"Second opinion!" Duo announced, grabbing a spoon, dipping it into the sauce. He cooled it off, and placed the spoon in front of Wufei's mouth. "Your turn, 'Fei: more salt, or no?"

Wufei glared, and tried to take the spoon for himself, but Duo avoided his questing hand, using his one inch to keep the spoon out of Wufei's grasp. Wufei's glared hardened. "Give me the spoon, Maxwell, I have no intention of being fed. I'm not an invalid."

"But what if I like feeding you?" Duo grinned.

"Then you'll have to do without a second opinion," Wufei shot back. Duo grumbled under his breath, and handed over the spoon. Wufei tasted the sauce for himself: a unique combination of tomato, celery, ground meat, mushrooms, chives and garlic. But he had to agree with Duo. "It does need more salt," he said, sending an apologetic look over Trowa's way.

Trowa frowned, and reluctantly added salt, with a muttered, "let it be on your heads."

"Wait!" Ron exclaimed, and Wufei looked over calmly. "You _all_ know each other?" At the returned nods, he shook his head. "Bloody hell."

Wufei frowned. "If _you're_ here, Maxwell, then it can be safely assumed that we're all here." He seemed to shift into a more comfortable way to stand, and his fingers drummed a devil's tattoo where they could reach the skin of his arms.

Trowa's eyes fixed on him, and after a second's hesitation, he nodded. Duo smiled. "Sure!"

They escaped from dinner at the earliest opportunity. The three Preventers sat in a darkened room in the upper floors of Grimmauld place. Or rather, Trowa and Wufei sat: Duo paced.

"Okay, we gotta make this quick," he said, "or sexy's gonna come looking for me."

"'Sexy'?" Wufei asked.

Duo grinned. "Yeah. We got like, uh… what's it called, with the sucker fish that live with sharks? You know, the ones that clean the shark teeth, and in return don't get eaten?"

"A symbiotic relationship?" Wufei guessed, from the example.

"Yeah that!" Duo nodded. "We got a symbiotic relationship. I call attention to her good looks, and she lets me live in her house. And she's teaching me the theory behind magic. Although," he paused, frowning, "I still haven't ruled out the possibility of being a victim of capture and administration of hallucinogenic drugs."

"Victim?" Wufei laughed, but it was short, and bitter. "We haven't been victims for years. Anything that happens we probably deserve."

"Hey! I like to think we've been forgiven for our sins,"

"In what kind of alternate universe are _you _living? There is no _forgiveness_, not after what we've-"

"Can we stick to the topic at hand?" Trowa interrupted, cutting through the rising argument.

Wufei was the first to recover. "Yes, of course, Barton. So, the reason for this meeting-"

"Yeah, what was up with that code? We haven't used that one since war days!"

Wufei frowned as Duo interrupted him. "It was the only one I could remember clearly Maxwell. Now, as I was saying. If we have congregated here the laws of logic-"

"And the law of crazy authoresses" Duo put in.

"-states that… What was that Maxwell?" Wufei broke off.

"Law of Crazy Authoresses: unless the authoress intends on killing one or more of the main characters, all of said characters will be split up upon being transported out of their own world."

Trowa frowned. "This isn't some kind of story Duo. There is no 'crazy authoress'."

"How do _you_ know?" He asked, smirking with a remarkable similarity to Wufei.

"In any case," Wufei continued, warning Duo with a glare not to interrupt again. Duo made a silly 'locking and throwing away the key' motion against his lips, as if that meant anything: Wufei had seen Duo's lock picking skills first hand. "What can we do about finding Winner and Yuy?"

Trowa shrugged. "Not much."

"Yeah," Duo nodded. "The only computer I've come into contact with has been completely useless in terms of hacking. I don't think even Heero could hack his way into a public library with it. It's total crap: can't even secure some funds."

"And I'm in a similar situation," Wufei murmured.

"Now, if we could get our hands on a decent computer, maybe beef it up with a couple of 'Duo Surprise' upgrades, we could enroll ourselves in a high school, or something. It'll be boring as hell, what with all the advanced learning we know, but at least it'll put us in a place where we can be found," Duo offered.

"But we'll need to get our hands on funds first." Wufei reminded.

"Funds aren't going be a problem. Our… host families are. How can we trust them?" Trowa asked. "As Duo said, the possibility of being on drugs right now is quite real. They might be listening right now. It's a ridiculous story, made believable only by the evidence of our eyes. We all know how deceiving mere senses are."

Wufei shook his head. "If we're going to go down that road, Barton, you might as well declare myself and Maxwell untrustworthy. We're going to need to work together to find the others, and we're going to need help. The Weasleys, at least, are trustworthy, and I suspect that those they trust are not unworthy either."

"How do you know?" Duo asked; his voice muted.

"Let me tell you a story," Wufei answered. "Once, there was a man, who was barred from his colony, from his home, for being both different from other men, and for caring for men… in the way he should have cared for women. The people of the colony spoke of him kindly, for though they did not agree with the laws set down in the times Before Colony, they were powerless to change them so long as the elders did not share their opinion.

One day, a child wandered down hallways he should not have known about, searching for a library with books he hadn't read yet, searching for solitude. He overheard the people talking about the man, words to the effect of, 'At least he is with a Weasley. The Weasleys are good people: they always have been, and so they will continue to be." Wufei's gaze rose from where it was fixed on a shadow on the floor. "If we deny the legacy of our ancestors, then we can never truly learn."

"Maybe they were different Weasleys." Wufei shook his head at Duo's whispered suggestion.

"No," he said. "The child, intrigued by the whispered words, did research into this 'Weasley' family, even going so far as to write to the man, his great-uncle, to request a meeting. The man agreed, and the boy met the Weasley." Wufei stared straight into Duo's eyes. "He looked exactly like Ron probably will in fifty years. My great-uncle was a Wizard, Duo. And in the wizarding world, the Weasleys are renowned: they never go bad."

"So we can trust them?" Trowa asked, and Wufei nodded. "Good," the circus performer nodded. "We can trust Professor Snape. He's like me." To the two Gundam pilots the words were intended for, the words made sense. To the three children listening with Extendable Ears outside the door, they made no sense at all.

"'Like me'?" Ron mouthed, wondering what that meant. Duo's voice reached him through the extended lobe: "Yeah, Hermy's got the green light, too. You can't buy innocence like that."

Ginny, sensing that the conversation was coming to a close, hurried the three away from the door, to where they could have their own secret conference. "Well, looks like our reputation is in place, even in the future!" She said brightly, but her words were met with dark looks.

"What am I gonna like in fifty years?" Ron wondered out loud, and Hermione frowned at him.

"I think the more important question is, what have they done that they can't be forgiven for, and can we trust them?"


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: It just occurred to me that this fic is moving _excruciatingly_ slowly. I'm going to try to speed it up, but I don't want to lose the authenticity (if combining two completely different series' can be in any way authentic), so the 'speeding up' may not amount to much. If it doesn't… well, it'll be the first really long fic I've written. In any case, this chapter occurs a few weeks after chapter 6, so keep that in mind.

But Magic Doesn't Exist- Chapter 7

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

Heero's typing slowed, and half of the programs he had open were minimized. By the time the boy entered the room, Heero was playing Solitaire on his newly bought computer. Green eyes blinked at him, and then the boy began making breakfast. It had become a ritual, almost.

The last month had given Heero a place in the Dursley residence, and a job, even if it was fairly boring. After two days, he'd been hired to protect the Dursleys from the threat the boy- Harry's- friends posed. He'd yet to meet said friends, but the dark looks Harry shot his family had been more than enough to put Heero on edge.

After a week, Dudley had demanded that his parents buy Heero a laptop. Vernon, after what Heero could imagine Wufei describing as a 'disgusting display of weakness' on Dudley's part, handed over his credit card, and told the boys to have fun shopping. Heero used the card to get his laptop, and some upgrade supplies, which he then used to hack, and siphon funds from varies companies around the world. Then he began paying rent, telling the Dursleys that the computer he'd bought had allowed him to access his Swiss funds, since using his regular account might alert his previous employer of his whereabouts, and she had become far too attached for comfort. They believed him on the basis that the memory of Relena had had him shuddering in revulsion.

Of course, the fact that the next day, he'd rewritten the software at Vernon's work helped… that had been fun: more challenging than he'd thought it would be. Vernon had come home from work complaining that production for the day had been halted because of a virus that had crashed the computer systems.

Heero had asked about the symptoms of the crash, his fingers flying over the key board, hacking file after file to find his way to the Grunnings mainframe. When Vernon reached the end, he complained loudly about how computers were ruining the production line (which Heero bristled at), and that the 'computer man' was going to take three weeks to fix the problem.

Then the phone rang, from one of the workers that had been left behind, and Heero had smiled as Vernon was told that the virus was gone, and the machines were working again.

He'd shrugged when Vernon asked him about the smile, and said, "I'm a man of many talents." Completely true, and he took a perverse pleasure in leaving the family wondering about him. He _did_ have emotions; it just took him longer than most to overcome the paranoia that forced him to hide them. Emotions exposed weaknesses that stoicism hid.

Harry was set out the breakfast utensils. Heero frowned. His nearly three week (two weeks six days and 22 hours) search for his companions once again turned up nothing. The closest he had come to finding any of the three was an email address: in London. The household the email was attached to was listed as being owned by the Grangers, who had filed one dependent, a girl, on their last tax return, and only two other emails were attached to the address: a dead-end.

So far, he hadn't touched the Americas or Australia. He'd have to expand his search again. It seemed as though the others either didn't exist (possible, if this was real, and he was the only one to have… time traveled), or were making an effort not to be found. Both seemed unlikely. But there were really no other options. If the others were making even the slightest effort to find others, they should have made contact by now. Which meant he was either alone, or this was a very, very elaborate conspiracy. It was unlikely, and he was becoming less convinced of it each day, but he had no doubt there were some fanatical enough to attempt it. Dekim Barton had been that fanatical, after all.

"Heero?"

Heero's gaze rose. He'd been aware of Harry leaving- for the mail- and returning. The boy had stopped at the entrance to the kitchen with a stunned look on his face. "Yes?"

"It's for you," the boy said, holding a letter in his direction. Heero took it, noting the thick paper, and wax seal. Written on the outside, was:

_Mr. Heero Yuy_

_The Couch_

_4 Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging_

_Surrey_

The inside was even more bizarre, and Heero read on, letting a small smile grace his lips.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr. Yuy,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July. _

_Due to your age, you will be escorted, upon reception of your owl, to a protected area, where you will be trained to fifth year level, and tested for OWLs. _

_Yours sincerely,_

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Heero's eyes skimmed over the page, noting when the Dursley's arrived for breakfast. He also noted how they froze when they saw him with the letter. He didn't concern himself with it, because upon finishing the page, his lips twitched, and he snorted.

"'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'…" he muttered. "Duo's outdone himself this time." His eyes lit on 'Supreme Mugwump', and he did something he hadn't done in far too long: laughed.

It wasn't a small laugh either. By the end, there were tiny water droplets at the corners of his eyes, and it was difficult to breath. The Dursleys were staring at him, and he waved the letter at them while he reestablished his breathing patterns.

"Is that…" Petunia ventured.

"A joke," he finished for her. "One of my companions… he believes that I have no sense of humor, and has made it his personal mission to make me 'lighten up'." Heero couldn't help but chuckle. "I'd been hoping to hear from him, but this" he waved the letter again, "is a work of genius." He set it aside.

"It's not a joke!" Harry exploded. "Hogwarts is real and the best school ever!" He glared at Heero's placid expression.

"Magic doesn't exist." Heero said.

"Then why does it say 'The Couch'?" Harry returned, pointing at the envelope. "There's no way your friend could have known that!"

Heero raised an eyebrow. "Yes he could." Heero said. "Duo's specialties are espionage and demolition. It's entirely possible that he's staked out the grounds on this house." It would certainly explain the feeling Heero'd been having: a feeling of being watched.

"Then why did _I_ get one too?" Harry waved his own letter in Heero's face, and the former Gundam pilot resisted the urge to snatch it out of midair. And snap the bones in Harry's wrist. The boy was far too close for comfort.

"Duo probably thinks you need a good laugh." Heero answered, and turned his attention back to his laptop. He had his answers: he'd puzzle out the secret code in the letter later. Duo would no doubt reveal what he knew within the text, and that letter would lead Heero either to his other companions, or at least to 02, whereupon the two of them could find the others. "Magic doesn't exist," he repeated, and Harry stormed up the stairs, back to his room. The Dursleys looked pleased.

The freeze on their accounts showed no attempted activity. The snitches, sneaks, and info men employed could tell nothing of value. Even the Manguanacs could find no trace. They'd disappeared out of known space, from a mission that had looked suicidal the minute she'd drawn it up. She'd seen how bad the information was, known it would likely end up with at least one of them in hospital, and sent them in anyway. And they'd let her.

Une slumped in her seat, raising her eyes from the report, to the concerned expressions of the women around her in the conference room. Slowly, she shook her head. One of the women, Barton's sister, burst into tears. Her shaking body was gathered into the arms of the spokesperson for Quatre's family, Amina. She was a waif-like woman, with a body smaller than Chang's, but her manner was just as powerful as Yuy's, and Une guessed that was the reason she'd been chosen to speak for the Winners, regardless that she was… seventh born? Possibly eighth; Une was too tired to check, and too medicated to care. The ...situation …had sent her stress levels to ones equal to those during the war, and she had found, and was finding her mood swings were growing worse, day by day. She'd have to ask Sally about a stronger dosage…

"I just don't get it!" the girl Duo had gone to live with, Hilde Schbeiker if Une's memory served, said suddenly. "I know Duo! I understood when he wanted to join Preventers. I understood when he wanted to transfer off L2. I even _fucking_ understood when he told me he couldn't make it to my anniversary party because of this mission!" She fixed Une with a glare. "But I don't get why he would disappear!"

"The likelihood that they were captured, and are being held prisoner is extremely high, Miss Schbeiker," Une repeated, the words in her head breaking the weariness that pervaded her body in favor of a shudder. /_Agents captured, Missing in Action_./

She really, really didn't want to have to write those words anywhere in any report, but… what could she do? If it were any other agent, any other team, she'd call up Chang and Yuy, and Maxwell, if need be, and tell them to crack this case, and get her agents out with as little injury as possible. But these were not any other agents. These were her best, and she had no one else she could send; no one who could break them out. She had no one.

And she really wanted to cry right about now, but that bone deep weariness settled over her again, as she straightened in her chair, and said, "Every agent I have left is working around the clock to find them, ladies. Rest assured, they will be returned to us."

As she said it, Une took a moment to stare each woman in the eye. All of them were connected, in some way, to the missing agents. Miss Winner, Miss Schbeiker, Miss Bloom. She had been concerned that Chang and Heero had no one close to them; no one listed in their next of kin, at some point that seemed a hundred years ago. But not now: now, she was just glad there were only three sets of eyes to meet. Rashid, and the Manguanacs knew- she'd informed them first, to secure their aid

She'd have to inform Relena soon. No doubt it would get out to the press eventually. Then there'd be a massive influx of hoaxed information the Preventers would have to wade through, and whoever had captured her agents would get daily updates of how close the Preventers were to finding them, finding her agents, her boys because that is what the public would demand. The Gundam Pilots would be hidden away even better, and recovering them would take forever. She had to believe she would find them. She had to, or she would give into despair, and she couldn't do that. Not in front of these women, not in front of anyone. How she found them…

No. She couldn't consider the possibility that they were dead. If they were- they weren't. And that was that.

"It's been a month already," Amina said into the silence that followed the soothing of Trowa's sister's sobs.

"I know," Une said. "But there have been no ransom demands, nothing. No sign of them beyond their last report." It had been a small thing, merely stating that they'd found a chink in the warehouses' security- remarkably well put together, for a terrorist faction- and were preparing to move in. She'd waited for two days without word. Two days had stretched into three, into four, five, and soon it had been a week. The weekly report she'd expected did not come. They sent no word the mission was finished, or delayed, or failed; no word at all.

Une shut her eyes wearily. When she opened them, Amina was staring at her with an appraising expression.

"Commander?" There was a soft voice from the door. Sally. Une sighed. It had become a major part of her vocabulary this past month.

"Yes, Dr. Po?"

"Were you planning on… fulfilling your commitment this evening?"

Une received four very different expressions for Sally's efforts. The doctor herself- having taken up the role after she proclaimed Wufei, her original partner too neurotic for his own good, and Wufei proclaimed her a second mother, and told her that if he wanted one, she would be the first to know.

Sally had finished the medical degree she'd been working on when the war erupted, and quickly set herself up as Une's personal physician. Une had come to agree with Wufei, but also saw that it had been part of the agent's own sensitivity to what he would call weakness, and everyone else called humanity that had made the man feel smothered. Une was grateful, if for nothing else than the fact that Sally hadn't openly asked if Une was going to make time to take her medication tonight. That would have been embarrassing as all hell: she'd thought she'd recovered from the massive mood swings that had left most of those in her command wondering if she had multiple personality disorder. Sally had put her back on her war time medication- seeing no reason to overrule another's work, if it worked- and ensured that she took it every day, twice a day, after Une had missed two days in her frantic search for her agents, and accidentally fired her secretary.

The other womens' expressions varied from outrage to narrow eyed cunning. She could imagine the thoughts going through the womens' minds.

"Of course, Sally. Just let me wrap up here."

She turned to the women. 'Wrapping up', she realized, was going to be fairly difficult: there was nothing else to say. "May I stress, ladies," she began, "that we are doing our utmost to find your loved ones. We will either recover them, or…" she swallowed, feeling sick at the prospect, "we will recover their corpses. More than that, I'm afraid I can't promise."

Amina Winner looked satisfied, but Hilde Schbeiker fixed her with another glare before storming out, Catherine Bloom's arm interlocked with hers. If Une had looked up, she might have seen the junkyard owner's expression soften as she turned back one last time, and watched Sally hand the former OZ commander her medication. But she didn't look up, and she didn't see, and the ensign who burst past the surprised women, with an exultant expression caught her completely by surprise.

"Commander!" The boy, he held his minimum 19 years like they were far fewer, and Une could tell without looking up his record that he hadn't participated in either war, and had joined up because he thought working at Preventers would be 'cool'. She begged to differ.

"Yes, ensign?" She allowed none of her exhaustion to hinder her manner, as Trieze had taught her, by example. _Strength in a leader inspires strength in the soldiers_, he had once said, and she'd taken care to never show weakness from then on.

"It's them!" he cried out, grinning.

"It's who?" Une asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Them! Agent Winner's on the phone, and he says that the others are with him!" The ensign grinned. Une scowled. She would look into this personally: whoever leaked the information to the press, or to the underground would find themselves fired and blacklisted before they could think the word 'hoax', much less say it.

She couldn't deal with a hoax right now… maybe she never could. But this, she would deal with first.


	9. Chapter 8

But Magic Doesn't Exist! – Chapter 8

Legend:

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

Number 12 Grimmauld Place had been invaded. Well, no, not really invaded, but the minute Harry stepped in, escorted as he was by the greasy git, he could tell that something was different this year.

"I WON'T GO TO ANOTHER FUCKING BOARDING SCHOOL!"

The scream reverberated down the halls, waking up the portrait of Mrs. Black- who screamed obscenities from behind her curtains- and confirmed Harry's suspicions. He glanced a look up at Snape. The man looked livid.

The Potions Master swooped down the hall, and Harry followed close behind, to find himself staring at a scene of utter chaos. There were three- _three!_ - people, other than the ones he knew, standing in the living room. The tallest, whose hair fell in a smooth fall in front of his face, leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and lips frowning. The other two, one Chinese, and the other who had the longest hair Harry's ever seen, even if it was up in a braid, were facing off, red in the face, and glaring worth anything. Harry wondered if he and Malfoy were ever that loud.

"Mr. Maxwell!" Snape glared. "I warned you last time. I will have you serving detention for a month upon reaching Hogwarts for using that kind of language!" he hissed.

The one with a braid threw his hands up in the air. "Wasn't me!" he protested. "I would f- er, fudging _love_ to go to school! It'd be the first time I've stayed for more than a few weeks at a time! It's '_Fei_ that's got the problem!" He jerked his head at the Chinese boy, who crossed his arms and glared. Snape looked triumphant.

"Ah," he smirked, "not so refined, then, are we, Mr. Chang? You were present, I believe, for Mr. Maxwell's warning?"

Fei Chang (Harry thought it was spectacularly stupid name) nodded harshly, and looked away, face still flushed.

"In that case," Snape grinned, "_you_ will be serving the one month's detention. And I will see to it that whatever house you get sorted into loses points." /_Except if it's Slytherin/_, Harry thought.

The expression on Fei's face didn't change, but he met Snape's eyes before nodding slowly. "Of course. Sir." His voice came out harsh. Harry watched Snape stride from the room, apparently satisfied, and it was only after Mrs. Black's muffled screams were silenced that the others in the room took action.

Ginny and Hermione- Ron stood staring at the Chinese boy- approached Fei, with little trepidation.

"Blimey," Harry heard Ron say, at the same time as Hermione asked why he wouldn't go to another boarding school.

"I've had a bad experience with boarding schools. I don't think I need to go into details." Fei said, and then his eyes snapped to Harry. His eyes were really, _really_ dark, and Harry couldn't help but think that he looked a little like Cho. And hadn't Snape called him Mr. Chang? Maybe they were related.

The memory of that first, sloppy kiss, and the girl's subsequent tears were enough to dampen his spirits, but then Ron saw him, and yelled 'Harry!' with a really big grin, and Harry found himself smiling in return. Seeing his friends, even if it meant dealing with Snape over the rest of the summer, always had that effect on him.

"Ron!" He answered, and Hermione came up to hug him. He grinned, even though her hair was sticking to his mouth. "It's great to see you!"

"Hi Harry." Ginny said, and Harry smiled at her, though he could see Ron's eyes narrowing at how close to Fei she was standing.

There was a small silence, where Hermione pulled away, and then Mr. Maxwell draped himself over her shoulders (cuing another glare from Ron), and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear, "Good friend o' yers? How about introducing us, sexy?" He spoke with an accent Harry had heard on TV- a western called 'the Lone Ranger'- and Harry thought they looked like they were going out; he found that he was happy for her, not jealous. He wondered if he should be.

Hermione smacked the boy's arm. "Duo!" she admonished, then rolled her eyes. Harry noticed she was grinning, though. "This is Harry, one of my best friends. Harry, this is Duo Maxwell. He's staying at my house."

Ron piped up, "Yeah, and we have visitors at the Burrow, too." He pointed at Fei. "Wufei Chang."

"Wufei?" Harry asked, brought up short. "I thought your name was 'Fei'."

The boy rolled his eyes. "One of Maxwell's more annoying habits is to mangle your name beyond recognition." He bowed, hands at his sides with the palms against his jeans, and murmured something that could have been 'Nice to meet you'.

"Or hope of recovery," Duo grinned, and extended a hand. "Duo Maxwell, at yer service. I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie."

Harry shook his hand, but when he made to pull away, his hand was caught in an iron grip. Duo's eyes were narrowed as he turned Harry's hand, his right hand, over, examining the scars that read 'I will not tell lies'. Harry had gotten it the year before, when the DADA professor had made him write lines with a special quill that burned every word he wrote into the back of his hand.

"Neither do you, I guess, huh?" Harry couldn't tell if it was a question or not, but there was a look in the boy's eyes that reminded him of Snape at his cruelest, and he shook his head. /_Why am I so scared/_ He thought. /_I've faced down Voldemort, and this guy's my age/_

Before he could properly examine the feeling, though, Duo grinned again, and stepped back, raising his arms in an impression of Vana White. "And ladies, and gentlemen," he said, turning sideways to reveal the third boy, leaning against the wall, "we have here Trowa Barton, doing an excellent imitation of a Greek Statue." The smile turned into a leer. "Or would be, if he'd lose the clothes."

Wufei snorted. "In your dreams, Maxwell."

Duo fell to his knees, taking Wufei hand in his, "Oh but Wuffie! Don't you know you're the only one in my dreams? The things you do with whipped cream are scandalous, but always leave me beggi-"

Wufei looked horrified, and Duo broke off, laughing. He ended up rolling on the floor.

"Is it always like this?" Harry asked Ron. Ron nodded, eyes fixed on Duo.

"Yes, they have been. Well, at least the last couple weeks," Hermione said, smiling. "That's when we all came to Grimmauld Place.

"Why did you come?" Harry asked. He'd expected to spend the summer alone at the house: without Buckbeak, or Sirius, or Remus (who'd probably be off on order business), and without his friends, who would probably stay at their houses.

Ginny paled. "Didn't you read the Daily Prophet, Harry? Lucius Malfoy escaped from Azkaban. Mum thought it wouldn't be safe at the Burrow."

"And I thought it would be better not to stay at home, either. Duo was attracting way too much attention from the neighbors."

Whatever conversation Duo'd been having, he'd also been listening in on Harry's and his head snapped around fast enough to send his braid in a wide arch around him.

"I said sorry! It's not my fault the can was marked 'water based'!" He protested.

"I know!" Hermione said, "But it still attracted attention, and one thing we can't afford to be, is conspicuous!"

"What happened?" Harry asked. Hermione frowned, and blushed.

"You don't want to know Harry."

Ron opened his mouth, but she cut him off with, "And no, I'm not telling you, either!" she snapped, "That's final!"

Harry frowned, and seethed inside. This was just like last year: he felt cut out, left out of the plans, and it didn't help that both his best friends had had visitors this past month, and he hadn't known! Of course, he had a visitor too.

He opened his mouth to say it, but slowly let it close as he heard the hushed conversation the three visitors were having.

"- going to tell you Maxwell, except to say that I do _not_ have a 'complex' over it, I have not been traumatized by it, I just don't like boarding schools." Wufei clenched his jaw.

"I'll say," Duo gave a tiny laugh, "and I'll also say that you _do_ have a complex and you _are_ traumatized, 'cause we've been working together two and a half years, and I have _never_ seen you react that badly to _anything_."

"A year and a half, Maxwell; aside from you and Yui, the five of us split up in 196."

Duo frowned. "You did?"

Wufei made a single jerky motion that was probably a nod.

"You were alone for a year? After the shit we went through? That's enough to give a guy a complex right there! Why didn't you come find us, or something? It'd'a been great to have a talking buddy whose vocabulary doesn't consist of 'huh'."

"Hn." Wufei grunted; his gaze turned away again.

"Yeah, that." Duo said.

"We're going to be split up now." Wufei said. Duo didn't say anything, but his head cocked to one side. Harry realized that he was eavesdropping, but couldn't bring himself to care. It wasn't like the strangers were trying to hide what they were saying.

"What?"

"Maxwell, consider our birthdays. What was the approximation the dental scan reported?"

"May 25-ish. I changed that to 27, though; liked it better. Why?"

"Barton has informed us that it was early March when we left. It is now June. Happy Birthday; you're seventeen. Barton," he turned to the tallest of them, "yours?"

"September 7th-"

"Ah," Wufei's lips twitched.

"-179."

The little smile faded, and even turned into a frown. "You see, Maxwell? You're both seventeen. From what I have learned from the Weasleys, you will both be sorted, and then placed in seventh year, and likely be tutored until your skill level matches those around you."

"And you won't be, is that it?" Ginny said, frowning as well.

"Yes," Wufei agreed, meeting her gaze. "My birthday is December 31st, 180 AC." His gaze flickered to Hermione, Ron, and then met Harry's. "I'll be in your year," he said to them.

"Wait a second," Duo said, frowning. "Hiiro's is August 9th, and Quatre's is November 17th… that makes you the baby!" He grinned, and his hand snapped out pinch Wufei's cheek. "Aww… such a pretty baby!"

"Maxwell!" Wufei snarled, slapping the hand away. "Cease taunting me, and I will not have to break your wrist!"

Maxwell pouted at him, and said, "Fine, be that way."

"There has to be a way that you're not all split up," Hermione said, casting sympathetic glances Wufei's way. "After all, I read a university study last year, that proved that students who go to new schools in their last years of schooling do far worse than their peers who have been in the same school all their lives. It has something to do with having to go out and make new friends, and not focusing on school work. I'm sure if we talk to Dumbledore, he'll let you all be in seventh year."

"It wouldn't take much to properly put you there, either," Ginny said, smiling hesitantly at Wufei. "You've already learned everything I know, and you don't even have a wand yet. With Hermione's help you could probably be ready for seventh year by the school start."

"Nah, that's too much work!" Duo exclaimed. "Besides, if we're all in seventh year, then we won't get to hang out with you, sweet Hermione," he lifted a hand to caress her cheek playfully, which she slapped away in the same manner.

"And what happened to Wufei being the only one in your dreams?" she asked, and then followed with, "I'm not sure I can live with a bloke who's 'one true love' changes every ten minutes."

Duo's grin widened, and he draped himself on Ginny, which set Ron's cheeks the same color as his hair. "Well, then, I'll live with Gin-Gin, and you two study buddies can have time of your lives."

Wufei snorted. "Nonsense, Maxwell. You _need_ a studious environment. They don't have 'Demolitions 101' at Hogwarts."

Duo pretended to be offended, in a funny kind of way. "I can _too_ keep my marks up without a 'studious environment'!"

"No you can't," Trowa spoke up, lips quirking. "We both saw the marks from La Georgeville Ecole Secondaire. You know; the one in France."

"I was playing a part!" Duo wailed, and Harry couldn't help laughing. "He lives!" Duo exclaimed, pointing in Harry's direction, which set Hermione, Ginny, and Ron to laughing. Duo followed suit, and though Wufei and Trowa didn't, they both had tiny little smiles on their faces. Harry thought the smile suited Trowa.

This summer wouldn't be so bad, after all.


	10. Chapter 9

A/N: Ooooh… here's a doozy: Severus Snape. Yup! This chappy's coming to you from the prow (or prowl, or stalk, or swoop) of the SS! … er… did anyone get that? (insert random cries of 'No!' here) Yeah, it didn't make much sense to me either. I'll stop the boat humor now. Ahem. So yeah, this chapter's from Snape's POV, and involves a hell of a lot Death Eaters' stuff, and not much fun- except the snark. Gotta love that. Remind me never to write Snape POV ever again. Treading the line between good and evil is _so_ difficult.

But Magic Doesn't Exist!- Chapter 9

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/have a cookie/ thoughts

The pain in his arm was bearable. The laughter from the kitchen was not. Severus snarled as he prepared to answer the call. He'd have to brew the Unbreakable potion later: it was a delicate thing, requiring constant attention (which had been the point of brewing it: to distract himself).

"Evanesco," and it was gone; all six hours of work of it. Severus sighed, and returned to the kitchen, where he swooped and glared, and generally made a nuisance of himself- as he'd done every day for years- God he hated doing this. Being alone with his potions was much preferable.

Potter, of course, glared at him, along with all the children from the Weasley house, and Granger. Barton, thank Merlin for the boy- being glared at all day, however much he deserved it, was a trying experience- passed no judgment, and the Maxwell boy's lips twitched as he glanced between the man, and the Chinese boy. Severus was given to understand that he and the boy acted similarly.

He almost snorted at the thought: he and the boy were nothing alike.

"I am going out, Mr. Barton," he dismissed the others with his actions, "ensure these children are fed, and in bed by a reasonable hour. If there are any transgressions I am to know about them immediately upon my return. Is that clear?"

Barton nodded, but the Weasley boy glared, asking angrily, "Why's he in charge?"

Severus sent a glare his way that had been known to wilt the resolve of even students who had long since graduated. "If you would think, Mr. Weasley, you would realize that Mr. Barton is the eldest among you. As your next caretaker will not arrive for a day, yet, and I have just grown supremely tired of your presence in this house, I am taking the reprieve that I have been offered. And fifteen points Mr. Weasley," he added as an after thought, already turning away, "for cheek."

He could feel the boy's glare at his back, as he strode from the house, checking carefully before emerging onto the London street; he apparated almost immediately to the grand estate that served as the Death Eaters' headquarters.

He slipped his mask out of one of the deep pockets in his cloak, and put it on, fastening the cloak tighter around his body, and pulling the cowl over his head. There was no one to see him anyway. The Ministry had been searching for this manor since before Voldemort's first defeat. The Ministry, however- Severus had found- was filled with incompetents, and worse, corruptible ones. Not one had come even close to finding the manor, and Severus was yet to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing.

The manor itself was a decrepit, odoriferous affair- at least from the outside- with wind smashed windows and barren branched trees. Cesspools of filth putrefied, and Severus knew for a fact that that Toddy and Figgy, the house elves consigned to the manor, were nearly daily punished for trying to clean up the grounds. He nearly sympathized.

Once inside, however, the work of the house elves became apparent in the alluring mosaics and magnificent architecture. The further down one traveled, however, the less attractive the surroundings became, until one found plain stone cells, a dungeon worthy of Voldemort's and a potions lab that few wizards, and only two students, had ever had the privilege of working in.

Severus was very proud of Prince- now Snape- manor.

He strode into the hall, where Malfoy – senior and junior – were waiting with the Crabbes and the Goyles. A third boy, thin and pale like Draco, as familiar as any one of the mental defectives that passed for his students, stood in the midst of them. Severus raised an eyebrow at the sight of Quatre Raberba Winner, beloved of Trowa Barton, and heir to a multinational muggle pacifist corporation, and then dismissed him in favor of regarding Lucius. He removed his mask before speaking.

"What, exactly, was the purpose of disturbing my work, Lucius? I was in the midst of brewing the Unbreakable our Lord requested for your son. I hope you are satisfied knowing you have ruined six hours of work."

"You can always brew another, Severus," Lucius said, and waved a hand in the Winner boy's direction. "My son found this boy on our property. He claims to be a son of Abdul Winner, but his memories have been altered to a point where we are unsure what is true, and what is fiction. Achmed would like you to restore his memories."

Severus nodded, judging what would be safe to say. This situation was, at least, interesting. "Surely you can do that yourself?"

Lucius' expression turned sour. "The spell used was very advanced. My attempts to return his memories to him have come to naught. They only uncovered memories along the same lines as his altered ones, and I can find no trace of anything different. They were altered by a true master."

Severus smirked. "Then it is good that you have come to me, a true master, and not some" he sniffed imperiously "inferior potion brewer. I have had cause to meet the boy before, and I can assure you that, altered memories or no, he is a Winner."

Quatre Winner's eyes rose to meet his. "I'm sorry I don't remember you, then," he said, and his gaze dropped again. Severus had to hold back a sneer. There was all the teenage melodrama coming to the fore, as always. No doubt the boy was thinking along the lines of 'It's all my fault I can't remember a thing. If I was better in some way…'. And then – thank Merlin he didn't seem the type to be sorted into Slytherin – he would have to deal with it in class.

But the real question was not how annoying the child would be once he reached school: the real question was how much to tell the boy. Surely he couldn't tell him the truth. If Lucius were to ever find out that the boy was a muggleborn from the future (and Severus mentally sneered at himself every time he found himself thinking that particular phrase) the boy would be killed instantly. Severus had no doubt that the boy would tell Lucius: he was a Gryffindor type, and Gryffindor types never knew when to keep their mouths shut.

Similarly, he could say nothing about the boy's companions, or that all but one of them currently resided at #12 Grimmauld Place. Such an admission would either compromise his position with Voldemort, or put all four in danger of being used against each other.

"It was a long time ago we met, Mr. Winner," he lied smoothly, "I'm not surprised." He turned his attention to Lucius again. "I would like to speak to the boy in private, if you don't mind," he said, and at Lucius' suspicious look, added, "some of the symptoms of potion based memory loss can be… embarrassing, as you well know." He flicked his eyes down Lucius' body, and left the rest up to the man's memory- or at least the little he had recovered.

"Do you think I would deprive the boy of his dignity?" Lucius glared, drawing himself up to his full height.

"Of course not, Lucius," Snape said. "We'll be in the next room."

Snape cast a silencing charm on the room the minute he entered, and closed the door behind Quatre. He waved his waved perfunctorily over the boy's front, muttering '_perlego_',spun him, and did the same with back. No, there was nothing wrong with the boy. Nor, incidentally, were there any hanging Listen In charms, or Report Back hexes on him. Excellent.

"That wasn't very friendly," the boy chided him, waving a hand to indicate that he meant Snape's actions in the foyer, and not his rough treatment just now. He'd make an excellent addition to Gryffindor: maybe force that idiot trio to think a little before assuming Slytherins were evil.

"Have a care when speaking to your elders," Snape snapped, searching the room carefully. He might be the master of the manor, but the manor itself hated him – he and his half blood- and usually left a few nasty surprises in every room in case he came to 'visit'.

"Well, it wasn't!"

"When dealing with Lucius Malfoy, you will find, boy, that he is a snake in the worst senses of the word: cowardly, far less poisonous than you think, and more than willing to let everyone outside his family come to harm. Being associated with him, as you are, is exactly why I wished to speak with you in a private setting," Snape said, having satisfied himself that sitting down would be a safe action. "Sit."

Quatre did, looking mutinous. "Mr. Malfoy has been nothing but cordial to me, and in times such as these, such kindness ought to be repaid in like, not with vicious words, and implied mockery."

"Did a Gryffindor borrow your tongue, boy? You're speaking nonsense. Times 'such as these', as you say, require sharp thinking, and even sharper wit. Do you even know what you're getting into?"

"Of course," Quatre said, but Snape had spent his life- a not unsubstantial thirty eight years – learning to sense lies as they were spoken, and there was nothing even resembling surety in the boy's voice.

Feeling rather gracious today, he softened his voice: "Your memories are not as badly off as some might say, Quatre Raberba Winner. The friends you had, for example, have made an appearance in your altered memories, and you believed yourself a Winner when asked, did you not?"

The boy nodded, hesitantly. "From what I have seen, your character remains the same. Your memories may never come back boy, but one thing you must know is that forgetting your past can be for the better." It had certainly been for the better for Black and Lupin, when they'd conveniently 'forgot' that they'd tried to kill him in seventh year. Bastards.

It was too bad, really, that the Winner boy would never be sorted into Slytherin: he was polite, not entirely full of himself, and proud enough to stand up to Black's mother, even.

"How did you know?" Quatre asked.

"Know what?" Snape responded. The boy might, of course, end up being the first non-Slytherin he liked. That was provided the Barton boy wasn't sorted into Slytherin. He probably wouldn't be: none of those boys looked the type. Perhaps the Yui boy… smart, cunning, willing to use others- even he had heard the story of Yui stealing 'Deathscythe's' parts. Whatever a 'deathscythe' was. He wondered idly if it was the same as a regular scythe, and how in Merlin's name it had parts. It wasn't a particularly complex design, after all, just a blade, and a curved-

"About my friends." Quatre cut into his thoughts, oblivious to the fact that Snape had changed subjects in his mind. "You said we met before, once, a long time ago. You couldn't, therefore, possibly know everything about who I was, or even who my friends were! You didn't use Legilimency," the boy used the word so knowledgeably Snape could readily believe he had actually been born into the wizarding world "so that rules out that option," the boy gave him a look he'd seen on Granger's face often enough. "So how, exactly, did you know that my friends stayed the same in my memory?"

Merlin, the boy was sharp. Or perhaps Snape had simply been dealing with Potter and his ilk too long: Weasley wouldn't have caught that. But then, Weasley hadn't been trained from a very young age to be a business tycoon.

Snape's more than adequately equipped mind ran through the possible answers, and found… absolutely nothing that wouldn't give away more than he could afford. Damn.

Instead, he raised his wand, and focused his mind on the memory of the last few minutes. "Obliviate."

The boy started, blinked, and then stared at him with a slightly confused expression that Snape was used to seeing on the faces of children his age. "What did you want to ask me?" he asked, and Snape fired off a few of the most embarrassing questions he could think of.

Quatre squirmed, and blushed, but answered the questions. Snape smiled inwardly: sometimes, he felt like it was his life's mission to embarrass those around him. It was a good thing he enjoyed it.

Nodding sharply, he asked one more- simply for shock value- "Have any boils formed on your penis or buttocks?" He nearly gave the game away by snickering at the shade of the Winner boy's face as he shook his head violently.

"Good," he continued. "Come with me." The boy was a little slower to follow him than he'd been before, but returned to the foyer on his heels nonetheless.

"A Witch Hazel and Comfey based memory restoration potion will suffice," Snape said. "I'll begin once I finish the Unbreakable you wanted." With his eyes, he dared Lucius to challenge him. The man, much to Snape's disappointment, did nothing of the sort.

"Thank you, Severus," Lucius said, nodding graciously. "Come boys," he said to his child and the Winner boy, "let's go home." His eyes promised revenge, and Snape met them easily: he had nothing to fear. They flooed away, and Snape left.

The apparition to Hogsmeade required next to no energy at all, and he made a quick stop in Knockturn Alley's apothecary, Newt and Wort, for more Albizia and Monk's Hood. The amount required by an Unbreakable was staggering.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was still standing, which he considered an improvement over the visions of destruction he'd been having: he had left the idiot trio relatively unsupervised. The Maxwell boy opened the door from him, and gave him the space necessary for to get into the house.

Severus briefly considered telling the boy that one of his companions had been located… but then, the boy was the embodiment of Gryffindor idiocy, and would probably rush to 'save' his friend from 'the evil Slytherins' – never mind that the boy was perfectly happy where he was – and would likely get himself killed, and Severus did not relish the idea of explaining that to Dumbledore… or Lucius.

Besides, he had a potion to brew.


	11. Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks to Princess Kathleen who pointed out something I hadn't thought to explain. While yes, Wufei would be in the same grade as the other G-boys according to the American system, the british system has an age cut off at September first. So Hermione, for example, is born on September 12th, and is only in the same year as Harry and Ron because of those critical eleven days. Wufei would still have been in the same grade as Quatre, but he doesn't know that Quatre is there yet. So thank you for bringing that up, as other might have been similarly confused!

But Magic Doesn't Exist! – Chapter 10

… times passing, same POV, same scene

change of scene/change of POV

scene deleted, refer to livejournal account

have a cookie emphasis, ie. Italics

/_have a cookie_/ thoughts

_Care of Magical Creatures is a crack up,_ Draco had said, _you don't want to take that one. The teacher's barely more than a beast, and should be put down; but then, not _all_ people are as sensible as we Malfoys. _Those words echoing in his head, Quatre had not signed up for Care of Magical Creatures. It wasn't like he couldn't hire people to take care of any magical pets he chose to own.

He watched while Mr. Malfoy conversed quietly with the man meant to oversee Quatre's OWLs. /_Ordinary Wizarding Levels_: _OWLs/_, he thought/_and NEWTs. How… clever./ _The sarcasm was palpable even in his thoughts.

The man, Gerand Wersford, stood straight and tall, in green robes that were just a touch grey. Mr. Malfoy was annoyed, he could feel behind his ribcage, with the fact that his original choice of adjudicator had been previously occupied, sending his assistant instead. Mr. Wersford was, in turn, affronted and angry that Mr. Malfoy refused to acknowledge his worth. Quatre just wanted to get this all over with before he exploded from the tension in the room.

Draco hadn't been allowed into the examination room, and Quatre wished he were there, because it would mean he would have someone to quiz him on things that would be on the exam.

He'd chosen to go with Ancient Runes instead of Care of Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy just so that he would have a class with Draco. Besides, it wasn't like Arithmancy was all that difficult. It was very similar to the advanced maths the tutors of his false memories had taught him. His fake memories were useful for some things, at least. He almost dreaded his next meeting with Professor Snape. No doubt it would be the return of his memories, and the destruction of his false ones.

That would be a shame: he knew he shouldn't, but he actually _liked_ his false memories. Though his sleep was often disturbed by nightmares of his past memories, and the memories themselves were terrifying in places, there were many that he found himself chuckling over as he felt himself discovering them anew: a quiet afternoon with 'Duo', 'Wufei's reaction to his library on L4 – a spacestation? Honestly. – and, he blushed to remember it, an afternoon with Trowa, lounging in the sun, languidly making love as they wasted away the day.

His memories of Heero were few, and often painful to think of. From what he could remember, he hadn't spent much time with Heero, though he kept correspondences with all of the other pilots after the wars. Within a month, he and Trowa had grown tired of the idle life that his wealth offered, and joined Preventers with Duo – who had joined a few days prior – and were soon followed by Heero, who had appeared from the wood work of Relena's security detail.

He nearly snickered to remember the laughs they had had at the girl's expense. Really, she wasn't that bad any more, and they knew that, but sometimes when the darkness of war had been too much to handle, a laugh about the girl who had stalked Heero so successfully that she could have won the war for OZ or White Fang if she'd had the inclination was what was needed to chase the dark away.

But then, 'Relena' was a figment of his imagination, as were the other 'pilots' and the wars, for that matter: a fanciful figment, at that. He put them away in his mind, and went over the incantation and definition of a Sonorus charm.

He ran through levitation, silencing, and his fingers were twitching through the wand movements of a full body binding when Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Wersford turned to him.

"Let's get started," Mr. Wersford said sourly, "Your theory exams will be spread out over the next week, with the practical exams the next week following."

"What?" Quatre felt his eyes pull wide. "So long?" Could he _last_ that long under the anxiety? "I won't do it."

"Pardon me?" Mr. Malfoy frowned as he spoke, his face twisting into an ugly expression that Quatre would later come to realize that Draco had never seen: it was cunning, angry, and made the darker parts of Quatre – the ones that haunted him at night – flare up in response.

"I'll do all of them today. It's better that way." Quatre said, well aware of the scandal surrounding the Malfoy name. Father arrested for collaboration with a Dark Lord, only a few months escaped from prison, and hiding in his own house. It was part of the reason Lucius was so annoyed to have his first choice of adjudicator be 'otherwise occupied': the man was one of the few who would sneak Quatre's results in among the other students', and not report Lucius to the authorities while he was at it.

"Each exam takes three hours to complete;" Mr. Wersford informed him, "to complete nine exams worth is impossible for anyone."

"Only if I take longer than two hours for each exam," Quatre shot back haughtily. It wouldn't be the first time he'd written for long periods of time: his mission in New Venice had taken four days and been comprised mostly of forging documents.

There was a large part of his mind that told him that they weren't _his _memories, they weren't _anybody's_ memories, and he _hadn't_ gone to New Venice, there _was _no 'New' Venice! How could _he_ expect to write for eighteen straight hours, and still pass his exams?

Ignoring tactical laws, his words were based on the faint belief that he could do this, that he was capable. He had done harder things. "I'll do the theory today, and the practical tomorrow," he continued, and, at Mr. Wersford's suspect expression, added "I'm ready."

"Then the issue is settled," Mr. Malfoy grinned smugly, sparking a faint… familiarity in Quatre. 'Déjà vu' the Duo of his memory would have called it. Quatre didn't think such a simplistic term applied. It wasn't so much that he'd seen that smile before so much as… it reminded him of… someone… telling him… something?

The shadow of the memory slipped away as easily as sand in an hourglass, and Quatre shook his head minutely.

"Administer the tests," Lucius was saying. "Quatre will pass or fail on his own merit."

The eighteen hours turned into hell by the time Quatre had reached the one quarter marker. His brain felt like it had turned to mush, or perhaps a supersaturated sponge. He pulled facts out, left, right and center, and Quatre tried not to let his thoughts stray.

His brain kept wanting to think about how good Trowa's massages felt, and his body kept twitching under Wersfords gaze. His hand kept moving to grip a gun he didn't carry. Did guns even exist? Or was that science fiction?

Realizing his mind had wandered again, he shook his head, and concentrated on the Arithmancy theory. _Witch Helena Ingham desires to marry Muggle George Dawson, on the Seventh of October 1998. Suggest a more auspicious date, and explain your choice. _

His hand cramped, and he shook it out, and small moue crossing his features as he puzzled out the question. A glance at the time said he'd been working on the Arithmancy test for 45 minutes. A quick flick of his gaze over the scroll told him he was well over half done. He massaged his cramped muscles himself, giving himself a quick moment to wish Trowa were real and there. He wouldn't mind a kiss hello.

The answer came to him then: _December 4. _Same year. It was a better match to the numbers in both names, and accented their astrological traits better. Scrawling down a more complete answer, he glanced at the hour glass. Wersford must have turned it over, and the sand was a little less than half gone. His eyes widened. He only had half an hour to finish the rest of the questions!

He rushed his way through the rest. His brain, panicked by the time press, pulled facts out without feeling like a sponge and Quatre barely noticed when his hand bean to cramp again.

He passed through the rest of the tests in that same kind of state. His eyes were fixated on the page before him, his free hand braced the scroll when it wasn't reaching for the next. His writing hand barely wavered as it dipped the quill in the inkwell, dabbed off the excess and wrote in smooth movements.

The eyes on his back were still burning into him, but his hands, otherwise occupied, stopped twitching.

Quatre awoke, shivering with anticipation. Today was the day. His practicals had gone about as well, he thought, as the theory. This meant, of course, that he was in high spirits, as his theories had gone wonderfully. The only things today would be missing, he believed, were Trowa, and mind blowing sex. Of course, he grinned, he could always have mind blowing sex without Trowa.

Having it _with_ Trowa would be somewhat difficult.

He would just have to have mind blowing sex with someone else. He was fairly certain that Draco was willing… and if he wasn't Quatre was pretty sure he could _make_ him willing. Empathy was ever so useful.

He wondered, allowing himself a moment of reflection, what the Achmed Winner his memories supplied would think of his son even considering manipulating Draco Malfoy. He decided it didn't matter. His memories weren't reality after all, and he knew from Lucius what kind of a man his father was.

The Winners was the only family that the Malfoys considered themselves inferior to. The fact that they were far enough away that Mr. Malfoy never felt threatened was a major factor in that. Quatre, despite missing most of his memories, was picking up the game faster, he thought, than Lucius thought he was.

Inferior families were to be used, not respected. That, of course, was a crackpot theory, but one he could use. He was in the middle of a war (/_again/_, the back of his brain whispered, and the rest ignored), and whatever his family might think, he had principles (/_For now/_, the rest of his brain whispered, and the back ignored).

Lucius thought him to be weak because his memories were gone. Quatre knew Lucius to be weak for overlooking him as a threat. Not that he was going to reveal himself as one, of course not. He was finding that he actually liked Draco. And just in case whoever-he-was-normally didn't agree with who-he-was-now, he wasn't going to burn that bridge just yet.

Perhaps he could even strengthen it.

Quatre rose from bed, flicking his wand at the robes draped out over a nearby chair. With his word, they soared to clothe him, and he walked the halls of Malfoy Manor with a confident, measured stride.

Half a minute's walk took him to Draco's door, and he knocked briefly, before entering. Malfoy the Younger's room. Light spilled into the room from windows whose shutters he flipped open with a word.

"Protegera," his sunny smile never wavered as he cast the spell over himself. The filmy sphere snapped up around him, and the bright light of a full body bind bounced off it. Quatre lowered the spell, laughing at Draco's reaction. "Really Draco, you're such a drama queen," he said, snapping the duvet off Draco's somewhat prone form.

Blinking at the wand suddenly in his face, he gently took it from Draco's fingers, and set it aside. He leaned over the blonde territorially, inches from Draco's face. Temptation struck, and Quatre slowly lowered his lips to press against the other's. Hands on his shoulders pushed him back, and Draco favored him with a sly smile.

"You're a poof, then?" He asked, and Quatre shook his head.

"Does it matter? We're both going to have to marry girls we don't love, and probably don't even like. Why not have a little fun?" The last was rhetorical, and Draco's smile widened.

Draco stared at the ceiling for a long time. "Yeah," he answered back, absently. His eyes blinked. "I'm tired now."

Quatre chuckled weakly, and lay down beside him. He patted his robe slowly, and came up with his wand. /_Fuck marks/_, he thought, clearing away the mess/_they can wait until later/_.


End file.
